Athrú Whiskey
The Challenge
Hazelwood Estate, the home of Athrú whiskey, sits on an 80-acre peninsula in Lough Gill. Water surrounds it on three sides, making it the perfect location to distil and mature whiskey. Hazelwood House, the first Palladian-style villa in Ireland, was left abandoned until 2014, when Dave Raethorne, Athrú’s founder, purchased it and then started its restoration works in 2018. As part of this project, the team founded Lough Gill Distillery in an old factory on the site and set about creating Athrú, a luxury single malt whiskey.
The Athrú team did a stonking job at creating a beautiful brand with Athrú and extremely desirable and beautiful packaging for its luxury whiskey. Bua was brought on board to help athrú tell its story, manage the brand communications and drive brand growth. We have had such fun working on this brand. Where do we start; there’s the beauty of the estate, the House, the lakeside location, and Sligo’s wider ethereal beauty. There is the story of creating a high-end luxury whiskey from scratch and not compromising anywhere on quality. The team who all doggedly believe in Dave Raethorne’s vision. Our main challenge was unravelling all of this into accessible and visually appealing stories for new audiences.
The Solution
Bua delivered:
A new communication strategy for Athrú to focus on brilliant storytelling around this luxury single malt whiskey, the distillery, the heritage and story of the beautiful estate and its location on the Wild Atlantic Way.
Content Marketing for the Athrú website includes managing all blog content and email marketing.
Commissioning of photography and video assets.
Social Media Marketing, growing the Instagram account >13,000 followers
Influencer strategy: working with whiskey bloggers and whiskey communities nationally and internationally (some people that we collaborated with include whiskey and lifestyle influencers like Joe Price, Andrea Calvi, Joshua McMichael and athletes like Aidan O’Shea amongst many others)
Design support to create Athrú branded digital and print collateral
Public Relations: press mentions, profiles and blog mentions in Irish media, whiskey blogs and general media.
Product and campaign launches include the launch of the Athrú Cask Reserve.
Stakeholder engagement locally with key support agencies to plan for the ultimate development of Hazelwood into a world-class visitor destination.
The Results
Athrú has seen huge growth across its digital platforms since we began working with them.
