Beam buys last independent Irish whiskey distillery Ireland's last remaining independent whiskey distillery has passed into foreign ownership following completion on Tuesday of a $95m takeover of Cooley Distillery by the US spirits group that owns the Jim Beam and Teacher's Scotch brands. Beam, which also owns the Canadian Club brand, plans to invest as much as $9m this year in a bid to drive sales of Cooley's Kilbeggan, Greenore, Connemara and Tyrconnell whiskey brands. Irish whiskey was by far the best performing category in the spirits market last year with 11 per cent growth. We see Irish growing by double digits and that increases our level of excitement about this deal," Donard Gaynor, Beam's senior vice-president of corporate development, told The Financial Times. Cooley, which was founded by serial Irish entrepreneur John Teeling in 1987, made pre-tax profits of €2.5m on revenues of €15.9m in 2010 - the last year for which full year accounts have been published. The company owns two of Ireland's four remaining whiskey distilleries, including the Kilbeggan distillery that dates from 1757. Since its foundation, Cooley has marketed itself as the country's last independent whiskey distillery. The nerds say we have sold out and they are right. But it was impossible to compete with the big guys. Now we can get on every shelf in the US market," said Mr Teeling, whose multiple business ventures have spanned zinc, gold and diamond mining as well as green energy technologies and oil. All the big Irish whiskey producers are now owned by multinational companies. Pernod Ricard owns Irish Distillers, which produces the most popular Irish whiskey brand, Jameson, at its Midleton distillery. Diageo bought Bushmills in 2005 and the Scottish company William Grant & Sons purchased Tullamore Dew in 2010. Sales of Irish whiskey are growing strongly among younger consumers in the US, who are attracted to its smooth and sweet texture, said Mr Teeling. Irish whiskey is distilled three times while Scotch is distilled twice. Impact Databank, the drinks industry research group, said Irish whiskey sales grew 11.5 per cent in 2010 to almost 4.86m cases. It said more than 90 per cent of Irish whiskey was exported and the leading markets were the US, UK, France, Germany and South Africa. Irish whiskey is enjoying a renaissance at the moment. The bigger companies have come in with enough commercial muscle to expand production, sales and grow the brands," said Kieran Tobin, chairman of the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland. Last year, Irish Distillers announced investments worth €200m to expand its distillery in Midleton in the south west of Ireland. In the year to the end of June 2011 some 3.4m cases of Jameson whiskey were sold, compared with 2m cases in 2006, 1m cases in 1986 and just 460,000 cases in 1988 when the Irish whiskey market was stuck in the doldrums. Irish whiskey claimed more than half of the global whiskey market in the 18th century when there were hundreds of small distilleries located across Ireland. But the industry failed to embrace technological change in the 19th century and suffered a chronic lack of investment and an economic war with the UK in the 20th century, which saw it overtaken by Scotch. Scotch now sells more than 90m cases per year compared with just 5m cases of Irish whiskey. Beam, which is the fourth biggest spirits company in the world, plans to use its global distribution network and greater resources to build Kilbeggan whiskey into a global brand. Mr Teeling, who ironically is a teetotaller, will collect €13m from the sale of Cooley to Beam. He told the Financial Times that the opportunities were huge for the Irish whiskey industry. "I think the industry can double sales to 10m cases by 2016 and double that again to 20m cases by 2021," he said.