Three decades of Baileys

To discover the origins of Baileys, you have to go back more than three decades to 1970’s Ireland.

The forefather of Baileys was David Dand, then managing director of the Dublin-based drinks company, Gilbeys of Ireland.

Along with a small team of technical experts, David Gluckman, Tom Jago, Steve Wilson and Mac McPherson, he spotted the opportunity for a new drink and seized on it.

A combination of “gut feel” and research told them that people wanted something unique, good tasting, low in alcohol, and made of natural ingredients. Significantly, it was also important that the raw ingredients would be easily available and indigenous to Ireland.

Being Irish, David drew inspiration from two of his country’s greatest traditions — whiskey distilling and dairy farming.

Ireland’s temperate climate and rural landscape provide for cows to graze on green grass all year around — resulting in some of the best cream in the world.

The Irish were also the first to distill whiskey — even earlier than the Scots.

Interestingly, the first distillery in Ireland which is based at Bushmills in County Antrim is owned by Diageo plc — the same company that owns Baileys.

“We wanted something that would reflect the good things in Ireland,” Dand was recorded as saying.

“We thought agribusiness was good. Ireland was perceived as a pollution free, wholesome country. Then we thought about whiskey. The Irish were inventors of whiskey. We literally mixed them with a mixer that you would use in the kitchen. It tasted delicious.”

Dand is described by those who knew him as the ‘godfather’ of Baileys for his passion and belief in Baileys, especially in the early days when many obstacles appear to stand in the way of his dream. For example, his team had to figure out a way to make the whiskey and cream mix.

In trial after trial they found that they would eventually separate out in the bottle. It took them four years to crack the technical process that would combine whiskey and cream in a stable way to make Baileys.

Getting these two ingredients to mix proved to be their greatest challenge and their greatest achievement.

In the end, the answer came almost by accident to David, during the course of a conversation with a colleague in the ice cream industry.

The team applied the knowledge to create a proprietary process unique to Baileys and it was quickly patented. At last a perfect marriage of ingredients was possible.

When Baileys was launched in Dublin on 26 November 1974 at a production cost of $40,000 and a launch cost of $15,000 it became the world’s first cream liqueur brand.

R&A Bailey and Co was registered as the company that would market Baileys worldwide. Then Gilbeys of Ireland was later acquired by United Distillers and Vintners, the drinks division of Grand Met, which then went on to merge with Guinness to form Diageo Plc — now the world’s leading premium drinks company.

In its first year, Baileys was test marketed in Ireland, Netherlands and UK and subsequently launched in these three countries with the addition of Denmark and then Australia. Baileys was a huge success in Australia with support of the Irish community there. Then in the early 80’s Baileys entered the USA, now the single biggest market for the brand.

Initially, sales were projected at 150,000 cases a year after five years.. However within five years, Baileys was selling over one million cases and growing annually in double digit growth. Success fuelled confidence for increased investment from the parent company which in turn reaped more success — new markets were developed year on year and investment in R&D extended the shelf life to 24 months, still the only cream liqueur to give consumers this guarantee today.

By the late 80’s, Baileys had entered the big league of global mainstream spirits and with it brought successive investment in very successful advertising campaigns and sponsorship opportunities that continued to connect with more and more consumers all over the world. Increased capacity was soon needed to cope with growing sales demand and new, state-of-the art production facilities were opened on the outskirts of Dublin in 1992.

In 2002 a second production facility was custom built on the outskirts of Belfast in Northern Ireland to respond to further demand. Baileys now sells 6.8 million cases a year in over 130 countries. It is the sixth largest selling global, premium drink brand in the world and every minute of every day more than 2,000 glasses of Baileys are drank somewhere in the world.