Celtic Crossing Liqueur Co.

Celtic Honey began its life under a different name entirely. Bottled in Ireland as a blend of Irish whiskey, honey, and native wildflower character, it is one of the more unusual expressions in the Reserve Whiskey Library: not a distillery in the traditional sense, but a liqueur brand with a corporate lineage that runs through three ownership changes and a full rebrand.

History & Heritage

The brand traces back to 1998, when Mark Andrews founded Great Spirits LLC, the entity that first brought the liqueur to market under the name Celtic Crossing. In 2003, Great Spirits LLC merged into a newly formed Castle Brands Inc., which carried the brand forward through the 2000s. In 2011, the liqueur was rebranded from Celtic Crossing to Celtic Honey, a name change reflected in its current labeling and marketing. Castle Brands itself was acquired by the French drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard in October 2019, in a deal valued at roughly 223 million dollars; the acquisition formally closed on October 9, 2019. As of July 2026, Celtic Honey is owned by Pernod Ricard, and the brand's official web presence is hosted by Luxco, which operates as the Brands Division of MGP. That structure means the liqueur most people know today by its honey-forward name spent over a decade under a different one, and has passed through the hands of an independent spirits company, a public holding company, and now one of the largest beverage-alcohol groups in the world.

The Whiskey

Celtic Honey is built around triple-distilled Irish whiskey, blended with all-natural Irish honey and limestone-filtered Irish spring water, then rounded out with the flavor of native Irish wildflowers, including clover, bluebell, and hawthorn. The standard Celtic Honey Irish Honey Liqueur sits at 35% alcohol by volume, or 70 proof, per its official specification. A variant, the Celtic Honey Beekeeper's Blend, is built differently: rather than a straight whiskey-honey liqueur, it combines grain neutral spirit with Irish whiskey and honey, and comes in noticeably stronger at 40% ABV, or 80 proof. The earlier Celtic Crossing formulation, under the original name, took a different tack altogether, blending Irish whiskey with French Cognac and a touch of honey rather than relying on whiskey and honey alone. That original expression picked up a respectable 85 to 89 point rating from Wine Enthusiast. Together, the three formulations, Celtic Crossing, Celtic Honey, and the Beekeeper's Blend, trace a single brand's evolution in how it balances whiskey character against sweetness and proof.

Why It Matters

Celtic Honey occupies an unusual place on the shelf: it is not trying to be a sipping whiskey, and it does not pretend otherwise. It is a liqueur built on a whiskey base, designed for the kind of honeyed, wildflower-inflected pour that works as an after-dinner dram, a mixer, or an entry point for someone who finds cask-strength bourbon or peated Scotch too intense. Its ownership path, from a small founder-led spirits company to a public holding company to Pernod Ricard, is also a useful case study in how legacy liqueur brands get absorbed into major portfolios without necessarily changing what is in the bottle. For The Sentinel Room's Reserve Whiskey Library, it represents the honey-liqueur category within the broader Irish whiskey world, a style distinct from the single malts and pot still whiskeys most visitors associate with Ireland.