Sales of Bushmills, the Antrim-based Irish whiskey, rose from £56.1 million (€67.4 million) in 2022 to £56.8 million (€68.2 million) in 2023, as it continues to ramp up production of new spirits at the distillery.
The Old Bushmills Distillery Company Limited, which is owned by Proximo Spirits, the maker of Jose Cuervo tequila, had a pretax profit for the year of £11.2 million (€13.4 million), slightly higher than the previous year’s figure of £11.1 million.
It paid tax of £4.8 million and its retained earnings rose from £178.4 million to £182.2 million, the accounts show.
The company recorded a significant increase in the value of its whiskey stocks, which was driven largely by a higher value ascribed to its stock of young whiskey – that is, whiskey more than a year from the three-year maturation threshold – which leapt from £117.4 million to £141 million.
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The accounts show it also had £47.1 million worth of whiskey maturing in less than a year, up from the previous year’s figure of £36.2 million.
Overall it valued its stocks, which included finished goods and raw materials, at £194.1 million in 2023, compared to £167.6 million the year before. In 2021 that figure was £143.3 million.
The company’s directors wrote in the accounts that it is their “intention to continue to develop the present activities of the company through the continued expansion into new markets and growth of the brands”.
The amount the company owed to creditors increase significantly, driven in part by a loan from an entity called JC Master Distribution Limited, a related group company, in the amount of £24.5 million for the purposes of capital expenditure.
The balance sheet also shows the company had tangible assets worth £166.9 million, mostly made up of land, buildings and equipment. It had assets in the course of construction which it valued at £8.8 million at the end of 2023. It was also owed £9.6 million from creditors and had £4.3 million in cash.
The accounts did not provide a breakdown of its sales in different geographical markets on the basis that it “would be seriously prejudicial to the interests of the company”.
The company had 126 employees and a wage bill of £7.7 million, up from £7 million the year before, made up of wages and salaries, social security costs, and pension costs.
Proximo, which is owned by the Mexico-based Beckmann family, took control of Bushmills in 2014 as part of a deal with Diageo in which Diageo traded Bushmills for 50 per cent of the Don Julio brand it did not own.
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