 Ireland once dominated the world 's market for whiskey , producing 90 % of the world 's whiskey at the start of the 20th century . However , as a consequence of <unk> during the prohibition in the United States ( who sold poor @-@ quality whiskey bearing Irish @-@ sounding names thus eroding the pre @-@ prohibition popularity for Irish brands ) and tariffs on Irish whiskey across the British Empire during the Anglo @-@ Irish Trade War of the 1930s , sales of Irish whiskey worldwide fell to a mere 2 % by the mid @-@ 20th century . In 1953 , an Irish government survey , found that 50 per cent of whiskey <unk> in the United States had never heard of Irish whiskey . 
