Blackwater Distillery has commenced the Irish whiskey distillation process at its new facility in Ballyduff, near Lismore, Co Waterford.

The distillery will produce single malt and pot still Irish whiskey. It will also produce Blackwater Irish Gin.

Waterford’s distillery has become the 21st operational distillery in Ireland.

The facility is said to be the first whiskey distillery in the world to use blockchain technology to allow customers to track the production journey.

As part of this initiative, each bottle of Blackwater whiskey produced will have a unique symbol, which can be scanned to retrieve information about every step of whiskey production.

The stills installed at Blackwater’s Waterford distillery were produced in Siena, Italy, by the distillation technology company Frilli.

“This is a step change from the start of the decade when there were only four operational Irish whiskey distilleries.”

Irish Whiskey Association head William Lavelle said: “We are delighted to see another distillery commence production of Irish whiskey, marking 21 distilleries in operation. Over the coming months, we will see at least five more distilleries come on stream.

“This is a step change from the start of the decade when there were only four operational Irish whiskey distilleries. The Irish whiskey renaissance shows no sign of abating.

“2018 has been another year of exceptional sales growth for the industry with global sales set to exceed 10.5 million cases by the end of 2018. This will be the first year that Irish whiskey sales have broken the 10m case barrier since before prohibition in the US in the 1920s.”

The distillery will open to the general public for tours early next year.