Whiskey over Pesach

I thought I had posted something about this topic when I first heard about the “alert” over the summer. Apparently I didn’t so here goes:Over the recent holidays I overheard someone in my synagogue talking to the Rabbi about whiskey that had not been sold for Pesach (I’m not going to go into the details of why that is bad, out of scope of this post). It may have been a reprise of an OU/AKO announcement[1][2], but with an added wrinkle that specifically Irish whiskey was owned by Jews and therefore would require sale over Pesach. My BS meter immediately rang because unlike Scotland I know that there are only four Irish distilleries and the odds that the majority are owned by Jews is extremely small. In fact the majority are owned by publicly traded companies which do not need to sell chametz for Pesach. There are four Irish distilleries[3]. New Midleton is owned by Pernod-Richard (Euronext: RI) which is a public traded company.Old Bushmills is owned by Diageo (LSE: DGE) which is a publicly traded company. In addition the Bushmills FAQ[4] claims that Bushmills is under the Kosher certification of the Chief Rabbinate of IrelandCooley and Kilbeggan are both owned by the same company that is not publicly owned. It is doubtful the owner is Jewish[5]. So it appears that a majority of Irish Distilleries are not owned by Jews. Looking at the AKO announcement I seem to recall the original had many more brands than are currently listed. The links I found also refer to the “revised” list. Almost all the whiskeys listed are brands that are owned/controlled by the Sazerac company which is a privately held company. Based on the Hoovers preview[6] Sazerac is controlled by William Goldring. There is strong evidence that William Goldring is Jewish[7][8][9] Conclusion? The AKO announcement isn’t as farfetched as I may have originally thought. Especially if they are restricting their concerns to the Sazerac brands. I do still have several questions which are out of the scope of this post: Why only Sazerac and not Heaven Hill which is owned by the Shapira family?How does the concept of “parent company” apply to halachic ownership?Not to be callous but was William Goldring’s mother Jewish as well? [1] http://www.5tjt.com/international-news/8141-ou-and-all-major-kashrus-organizations-publish-problem-whiskey-list [2] http://www.kashrutnews.com/2010/06/revised-whiskey-alert-from-ako-kosher.html [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_whiskey [4] http://www.bushmills.com/Faq [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooley_Distillery [6] http://www.hoovers.com/company/Sazerac_Company_Inc/hstsci-1-1njg4g.html [7] http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/new-orleanians-of-the-year/Content?oid=1242335 [8] http://www.isjl.org/about/bios.htm [9] http://www.jewishnola.com/page.aspx?id=173370