weekend bites

This week I’ll be eating… wild garlic. Now that there’s a proper stretch in the evenings the ramsons, as they are sometimes called, have lush green leaves and a really pungent flavour. I’ll cook it like spinach, make it into soup, even make a kind of pesto with wild garlic, walnuts, olive oil, Parmesan and lemon juice. You can use the little bulbs in place of cultivated garlic and this was once a common practice in Ireland, according to the late Maura Laverty.

Power’s was my grandfather’s favourite whiskey and I remember him explaining to me the joke in the neck label’s ‘three swallows’. Originally distilled in John’s Lane just south of the Liffey (as against Jameson, just north in Bow Street) it has a true pot still character that reminds me of ripe peach. Power’s 1817 has just been launched as a pub-only whiskey to mark the bicentenary of the Licensed Vintners Association. I can confirm that it’s delicious.

Lots of events coming up in La Marine, the bistro at Kelly’s Resort Hotel in Rosslare, including a Burgundy and a Bordeaux tasting and a craft beer evening. Membership of the Kelly’s Wine Club is just €50 and gets you into six tastings. This has to be some of the best value fun you can buy. To join email ppower@kellys.ie and for further details visit kellys.ie. Kelly’s is one of my favourite places on earth.

It’s worth remembering that it was the French global drinks company, Pernod-Ricard, that guaranteed a future for Irish whiskey when it was on the brink of extinction back in the 1980s. Now they have launched an initiative called Method and Madness in which they combine the strict traditions of distilling with creative twists in how the whiskeys are finished in various kinds of wood. There are four in the range from the €49 single grain Spanish oak to the 31-year-old single malt at €1,500.