Northern Ireland's ​Irish Cream Liqueur is whipping up sales from international markets especially the US.

​Irish Cream Liqueur, much of which is produced in Northern Ireland, continues to grow sales from international markets especially the US.

It’s an expanding sector in spirits here in which new entrants continue to grow steadily by offering exciting options. In addition to sector leaders Baileys in Newtownabbey and Saint Brendan’s in Londonderry, new cream contenders have been launched recently by Two Stacks in Newry and this week by Donaghadee’s Copeland Distillery.

Cream sales, mostly to the US, drew even closer to the 10 million case benchmark during 2022. This is a testament to all the Irish cream producers on the island of Ireland which continue to produce the highest quality brands that are welcomed all over the world, according to recent Irish Spirits Review that’s been published by Drinks Ireland in Dublin.

Consumers, furthermore, are finding new ways to enjoy the cream.

Total Irish spirits exports increased in value by over 17% in 2022, according to Drinks Ireland. Whiskey, poitin and Irish cream are regarded as all-Ireland industries.

Diageo, the global drinks giant, recently unveiled a £26 million substantial expansion of its longstanding Baileys Irish cream liqueur plant at Newtownabbey. Baileys was first launched in 1974 from the Republic and now makes a substantial to the

Northern Ireland economy. Newtownabbey also sources cream from local dairy farms.

The site is one of only two locations in the world where Baileys is produced and local sources claim that around 97% of the factory’s produce, especially of original cream is shipped to more than 100 international markets.

Another of the longstanding producers of cream liqueur, Niche Drinks in Londonderry, part of the Luxco Group of St Louis, Missouri, has a portfolio of successful drinks, the most successful being Saint Brendan’s, probably among the most important especially in the US.

Formed in 1983, Niche Drinks produces a range of cream liqueurs for customers including Saint Brendan’s. The company uses cream from local dairy farms and its own Irish whiskey. In addition to Saint Brendan’s, one of the global market leaders,

Niche produces Brady’s, Causeway Coast and Yellaman creams.

A more recent player, Two Stacks developed a luxury double cream liqueur with greater whiskey content. It was a project under work for over a year, with the ambition to create a luxurious, complex and most of all delicious liqueur.

Blending eight times the whiskey and twice the butter cream content compared to the market standard, Two Stacks believe they have pushed the boundaries with a premium Irish whiskey Irish cream liqueur.

“It may seem like Irish cream liqueur has a long historical tradition in Ireland, but one must remember that the drink was first invented only as far back as 1974,’’ says Donal McLynn, a founder of Two Stacks, a bonding, blending and bottling operation in Newry.

“Since then, it has reached every corner of the world, with almost 10 million nine litre cases consumed last year alone.

“But it’s only been in the past couple of years, the sector has seen a more premium offering, with smaller craft brands offering unique and exciting alternatives to the bigger players. We see more demand emerging as this trend continues.”

Copeland Distillery has developed a new cold brew coffee liqueur. The small coastal distillery blended its distilled spirit with a cold brew coffee, brewed in its own coffee shop from freshly roasted beans to create what the company describes as big and bold flavour for lovers of something quite different.

The beans, carefully roasted by Wild Heart in Bangor and, are used in the distillery’s popular coffee shop, now a magnet for visitors and locals. It’s also where tours of the distillery start.

The organic coffee is further infused with cocoa nibs for “a fuller, more luxurious mouthfeel”, according to distillery founder Gareth Irvine.

The review by Drinks Ireland shows that Irish spirits sector once again demonstrated its strength with sales in Ireland increasing by just over 6% in 2022 to just under 2.7 million nine litre cases. The value of spirit exports also soared by 17.3% to almost £1bn.

These increases continued the gains seen in 2021 and moved both domestic sales and exports ahead to their highest levels ever. A thriving trade sector that needs to be promoted!

Irish Whiskey’s spectacular growth continued with export sales reaching 15.2 million cases in 2022. Bushmills, for example, passed one million cases for the first and sales rise by around 20% last year. The United States continued to be the key export destination for the category.