A breath of fresh Eire
pride in their output, pointing out that they nearly always triple distil their spirit, as opposed to the double distillation process applied to most Scotch whisky.
In County Wicklow, outside Dublin, we toured the Powerscourt Distillery at Enniskerry, which produces Fercullen premium brand whiskeys under distiller Noel Sweeney.
The 75-minute, €35 tasting tour features a visit to the warehouse containing 2800 casks of the amber nectar.
Alongside is Powerscourt House, a magnificent stately home and estate named by National Geographic as the third best ornamental gardens in the world.
It is stunning, featuring delights such as the Triton Lake with its 100ft fountain, the Italian and Japanese Gardens, the Dolphin Pond and the pet cemetery – the final resting place of Eugenie, a cow who had 17 calves and produced 100,000 gallons of milk.
The estate’s history can be traced back to medieval times when a castle stood on the site, but, in 1730, the 1st Viscount Powerscourt wanted to make his mark by building the grandest of elegant mansions.
In 1961, the Slazenger family, of sports kit fame, bought the estate ♦ Stena Line sails four times a day from Cairnryan to Belfast and from Holyhead to Dublin, with crossings starting at £89 for a car, plus driver, one-way. 03447 707 070 ♦ Rooms at the Marlin Hotel in Dublin cost from around £87 a night. and embarked on a project of restoration as a visitor attraction.
But after completion in 1974, a devastating blaze reduced the main building to a roofless shell.
on BBC Saturday Kitchen and NBC’s Today programme as well as her own cookery show in Ireland, has made an art out of Italian cuisine with a Celtic edge to it. Her kitchen garden provides a comprehensive range of vegetables and salad leaves – and our self-prepared salad was garnished with edible flowers. Food tastes so much better when you have done it yourself – and acquired new skills in the process. Much more of that, however, and I will definitely need my own fatbike on a permanent basis. ♦ Tourist info at
Today, it’s impossible to see the joins following a renewed building programme and the reopening of the estate in 1997.
Twenty miles away, at Ballyknocken in Ashford, TV chef and third-generation B&B proprietor Catherine Fulvio, who runs a cookery school on site, had us all develop our catering skills.
Catherine, who has appeared
TUCK in to the annual free entry Edinburgh Food Festival this summer.
The capital’s George Square Gardens will host live chef demonstrations, street food and local producer stalls from July 24 to August 2. This year’s festival will focus on fresh fish and seafood from around Scotland’s coast.
At the time of publication, the event was still going ahead. ● edfoodfest.com