The story
The company was founded in 1998 by Mark Andrews under the name Great Spirits LLC, through Mr. Andrews’ contribution of family-owned Knappogue Castle Irish Whiskey. Castle Brands Inc, was later established in 2003 and Great Spirits LLC was merged into Castle Brands. Between 2003 and 2006, Castle Brands acquired Roaring Water Bay Spirits, later acquired McLain & Kyne, established Gosling-Castle Partners and signed a distribution agreement with Pallini SpA. These four deals expanded the portfolio with Jefferson’s Bourbon, Boru Vodka, Clontarf Irish Whiskey, and Brady’s Irish Cream Liqueur and provided exclusive distribution rights to Gosling’s rums and Pallini Limoncello.
Castle completed its IPO in April 2006, at $9.00 per share, and raised net $29.3 million on 3.5 million shares. Proceeds were used to fund product expansion with the October 2006 acquisition of McLain & Kyne as well as an increase in sales and marketing efforts. Additional private financing in later years allowed the company to add more product lines.
Since 2014, the company management focused on growing its current brands across four categories: rum, whiskey/bourbon, liqueurs and vodka.
In October 2019, the company was purchased by the French group Pernod Ricard, second worldwide producer of wines and spirits.
From Wikipedia’s article on Castle Brands, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3