Drumshanbo

They say curiosity is the mother of invention. And never was an inventor more curious than PJ Rigney, the inquisitive spirit behind The Shed Distillery of PJ Rigney and Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin. 

PJ, who has been in the spirits world since the early 1980s, founded The Shed with his wife, Denise, in 2014 in the village of Drumshanbo in western Ireland’s County Leitrim. An explorer at heart, he was drawn to the wild, untamed beauty of this spot (“It is very much the road less traveled,” he says), where he was the first to open a distillery in more than 100 years. Today, PJ and Denise are joined by one of their children, Roísín, who is The Shed’s Visitor Experience Manager and oversees the nature reserve project.

PJ has spent many years crisscrossing the globe — including the far-flung corners of rural China, India, Indonesia, Morocco, and beyond. Using his fascination for unique and delicious flavors as a compass, he amassed a collection of 12 botanicals that ultimately became the recipe for a slow-distilled gin unlike any other. Building off the eastern traditions he’d picked up along his travels including the distilling of fruit, herbs, and botanicals, PJ envisioned a new spirit: a botanical gin that also incorporated Chinese gunpowder green tea and the local Irish herb meadowsweet (growing right in Drumshanbo), thus bringing his curious journey full circle.

There was one final piece of the puzzle: such a special gin needed a special mascot. Something that embodied the marriage of two disparate cultures and traditions, brought together in a singular flash of inspiration. Enter the jackalope: mythological progeny of a jackrabbit (not a real rabbit) and an American antelope (not a real antelope). Local legend holds that the creature was conceived during a massive lightning storm. He still appears today, along the knolls of Drumshanbo, but is always gone in a flurry of feet and antlers before anyone can catch him.

PJ’s extraordinary fusion of botanicals signaled the beginning of a spirits revolution in this sleepy corner of Ireland. The future is looking very bright for The Shed Distillery — and there’s nothing curious about that.