The distillery, a family-owned business with its own maltings located on a 100-acre site in County Down, received its license to distil whisky in May 2013 , and expects its own whiskey to come of age in 2016.

In the meantime, the distillery is creating 144 casks – named The Patron’s Promise – in three sizes: 200-litre, 120-litre and 60-litre, for consumers seeking to become the first to own liquid from the new distillery.

Shane Braniff, Echlinville Distillery managing director, said: “Interest in Irish whiskey has been growing dramatically, particularly in the US over the past five years.

“We’ve had a large number of approaches from people interested in being among the first to own and enjoy our range of new Irish whiskey and so we`ve decided to make a small number of casks available to satisfy this interest.”

Purchasers can choose from a malt or single pot still whiskey, size of cask, wood type, cask strength of the spirit and even what ratio of malted barley to unmalted barley to use.