The social distancing drinker
My childhood was punctuated by regular journeys across the Irish Sea in car ferries full of querulous navvies travelling home from London or Liverpool, who would knock back Paddies in the bar as everybody else tried desperately to avoid getting seasick.
Those ferries with their noisy slot machines, car decks that smelt of graphite, and duty-free shops full of Major and Carroll’s cigarettes were the first signs one had left England and was about to return home to the permanent economic basketcase that was Ireland in the 1980s.
As a young boy who had enjoyed a happy but rather sheltered childhood, the whiskey-swilling navvies and truck drivers seemed like fearsome Vikings, and I kept well away from them, although I remember liking the smell of their whiskey and the simple beauty of the label on the bottles of Paddy Whiskey, pictured below, with Ireland’s four provinces picked out in green, yellow, blue and red.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Paddy as a result, but rarely see it in pubs here for reasons I don’t quite understand — because it is, apparently, the fourth biggestselling whiskey in the world.
I thought of Paddy again the other day when I was tasting the excellent Proclamation Whiskey for the first time.
I had always believed whiskey had to be at least five years old to qualify for the legal definition of whiskey. A quick check on the EU website shows that the legal requirement is just three years, which is just as well for Westport-based Proclamation, as it comes in at a barely legal three years.
Still, despite its tender age, Proclamation (€35 and available in SuperValu) is a very decent spirit that is well worth tasting. It has a distinctive nose that is somewhere between pear and custard, and characteristic of old-fashioned whiskies such as Paddy.
As I sipped Proclamation, I was transported back to the slot machines and dirty carpets of that ferry in its heyday, but in the nicest possible way. I suspect this young but nostalgia-inducing whiskey is going to be a hit.