Top Irish Whiskey Award for Northern Ireland's Dunville

Northern Ireland's Dunville PX Premium Single Malt has won a major category award in the annual Irish Whiskey Awards.

The whiskey, produced by Echlinville Distillery at Kircubbin in county Down, was voted the 'Best Irish Single Malt 12 Years or Under' by a panel of expert judges in the event at Tullamore Dew Distillery in county Offaly in the Republic of Ireland.

Dunville PX is a blend of the whiskey that used to be produced in the old Royal Irish Distillery in Belfast until its closure in 1935. The whiskey was subsequently rejuvenated by Echlinville Distillery founder Sean Braniff and launched in 2014. Dunville was among the best-selling Irish whiskies in the US until Prohibition in the 1930s.

Echlinville Distillery, which got its own license to distil in May 2013 - the first in Northern Ireland in over 125 years - is now producing whiskey and other spirits such as Ban Poitin, a gold medal winner in the Poitin category of the latest Irish Whiskey Awards, as well as its own Echlinville Gin and Jawbox Gin. Echlinville opened its purpose-designed distillery earlier in the year.

Dunville PX is finished for around a year in Pedro Ximenez sweet sherry cask and bottled at 46% without chill-filtration.

Shane Braniff, commenting on the influential award, says: "We are delighted to have gained this important endorsement by the industry for our Dunville Single Malt. It's a further recognition of the quality and outstanding taste of our whiskey and should help enormously as we drive sales in the UK, Ireland, the US and further afield."

Dunville PX has also won recognition in the World Whiskies Awards in the US. The company is also about to revive another historic Dunville whiskey - the Three Crowns Premium Blend.

The Irish Whiskey Awards recognise and celebrate the ever-increasing interest in Irish whiskey, now the world's fastest growing brown spirit. The competition is organised by the Irish Whiskey Society and the Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin.

The judging process featured the blind tasting of entries by Irish Whiskey Society members. Up to 160 members took part in the process. Entries were submitted by distillers, wholesalers and bottlers from all parts of Ireland.