Their popularity has surged because of the show
An owner of Micil Distillery has shared his experience working with celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay as part of the Scot’s Disney Plus show.
Ramsay visited these shores in the Summer of 2023 as part of his series Uncharted Ireland and left everyone suitably impressed.
Speaking exclusively to Galway Beo, the founder and co-owner of Micil Distillery, Padraic O’Griallais told us how the whole meet-up came about in the first place and the almost immediate benefit they’ve seen since.
“It all happened last year when we got a call last year to the office from a guy called Paddy who does a lot of scouting for famous chefs that are trying to do shows in Ireland. So he rang, we had no idea who he was, he didn’t really give us much information but said that he was calling because we’re doing a show with a famous chef, I can’t reveal his identity but what’s different about you guys?”
Micil co-founder Ross answered the phone and began to use the gift of the gab to convince this mysterious man why Micil should be included in this celebrity chef series.
“Well look, we’re a sixth generation poitin and whiskey distillers and probably one of the only whiskey distilleries in the country that use peat although we’re not exclusively. We have our own bog and stuff like that”, Padraic told us.
That immediately interested this producer but he still wasn’t letting slip over who the celebrity chef would turn out to be.
They loved the local story and the fact that we’re a bit different in what we produce so. We didn’t know if we’d ever hear from him again but he reached out maybe a week later saying that the guys in the states wanted to talk to us.
The lads tried their luck to see if they could find out the identity of the celebrity chef but they still weren’t for sharing. They did a screen test which went well and then they told them confidentially that the celebrity chef was in fact Gordon Ramsay but that they couldn’t tell a soul about it.
After another screen test in Ireland, Padraic and the rest of the team were given the news that they were chosen to be in the new series which has already aired in the US and should be on isney Plus in Ireland and the UK towards the end of June.
The filming took place last July and as soon as the crew arrived, the whole experience went “very quickly” and without a hitch.
As for Gordon, he could not have been nicer to everyone involved and was completely different from the personality people would have seen on the likes of Kitchen Nightmares.
“What a professional, he was so sound, my mother and my sister were there. My brother who’s the head distiller was there. Like he couldn’t have been nicer, he gave everyone a few minutes of his time a real gent and incredibly professional. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with such a huge presence. As soon as he was there in front of me I was like ‘wow’,” Padraic said.
But as soon as the camera switched on, he went into work mode and was described as “a real showman and he just went up a gear.”
Ramsay focused on two things with Padraic, Whiskey and Poitin. Unsurprisingly, this was Gordon’s first introduction into the delicious world of Poitín and compared it to the likes of Moonshine.
After he tasted both the poitín and whiskey, Padraic shared with us how sales of both have increased massively in the states in particular.
“It’s a huge endorsement for the brand, for Gordon Ramsay to say that your whiskey is really really good. We’re actually just about to sign a deal for the US market with an importer and have been working on this behind the scenes and we expect to be in the market this autumn, Padraic revealed.
As for the future of Micil Distillery, exciting things are coming in the very near future as their very first whiskey distilled on-site will soon be released to the thirsty public.
