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American drinks giant Beam Inc is celebrating after their Cooley Irish whiskey distillery picked up 16v medals at this year’s International Wine & Spirit Comkpetition (IWSC).

Beam bought out the distillery at the end of last year, representing their first move into the rapidly growing Irish whiskey market.

Among the medals were three golds for their Connemara Peated Single Malt, Connemara Distiller’s Edition and the Kilbeggan 18YO, reports businessandleadership.com.

The site quotes Beam’s top Irish whiskey marketer, Stephen Teeling, as saying: “Although a first for Beam, Cooley Distillery has been phenomenally successful at the IWSC over the years and we will look to build on that success.

“The quality of our whiskeys, right across the product portfolio from blends and single malts to single grains to peated whiskeys, has again been recognised for excellence by the experts in our industry.”