Licence to make poteen legally in Ireland comes with a catch.
After years of mountainside moonshining, a company based in Bunratty, County Clare has been granted a licence to manufacture the real thing.
It's a poteen making licence with a classic touch of the catch-22 about it.
Oliver Dillon, owner of Bunratty Winery, is the only legal poteen maker in Ireland. In 1987, Oliver Dillon was granted permission to distil and bottle poteen by the Irish Revenue Commissioners on the condition that the product is for export only and can not be sold it in Ireland. The poteen can be made in Ireland and is legal to sell and consume everywhere in the world except here. Oliver Dillon says that poteen has been part of Irish life going back to the sixth century.
We'll put a cork in that to make sure it can't be opened until it's exported.
Legal Bunratty Poteen is only available in Ireland through the airport Duty Free shops. It is proving to be a big hit with departing visitors and Oliver Dillon is confident that sales will continue to grow in the coming months.
Don McCoy from Minnesota recalls his friend bringing poteen back from Ireland as 'Holy Water' but says that the Bunratty Poteen is a much smoother drink. Jack Bourke, of Shannon Development, formerly the Shannon Free Airport Development Company, describes Bunratty Poteen is an imaginative product.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 26 September 1993. The reporter is Jim Fahy.
