In the drink
Whiskey in Ireland differs not just in spelling from its Scottish counterpart, writes Mary Ann Anderson.
TRUE OR false? Irish whiskey is practically the same as scotch whisky.
Did you answer true? Blarney! You lose. Their rich shades of amber are about the same, but in tradition and taste, the two couldn’t be more different.
And I have to admit, I didn’t know that, either, until I embarked on a journey to Ireland, a country I’ve had a romantic fascination with since I was a child.
I didn’t visit just for the whiskey, of course, but for its legendary beauty, architecture and culture. Still, it was the whiskey that held the most intrigue.
The process of distilling dates back to about 500AD, to the Arabs who extracted oils from plants to make perfume. Thus began the unique process of evaporation and condensation, the essential principles of whiskey-making today.
Later on, Celtic Christian monks, who travelled throughout Europe spreading the gospel, used those same principles to creatively distil local ingredients into alcohol.
In France, for example, grapes were distilled for eau de vie, the cognac and brandy of today. Scandinavian countries produced aqua vit, while in Ireland grains such as barley yielded uisce beatha. These romantic-sounding words simply translate to ‘‘water of life’’.
In the late 1400s, the first accounts of grain distilling appeared in Scotland, but Ireland was deemed so close geographically that historians generally agree that for both countries the era of whiskey and whisky-making began. To distinguish themselves from their Irish cousins, the Scots left the ‘‘e’’ out of whiskey. The first official licence for distilling was granted in 1608. And here begins our journey. Our group began our whiskey education in Dublin, touring its narrow flower-lined streets resplendent with statues, churches, shops and pubs. Lots of pubs, where the whiskey pairs well with local specialty dishes such as corned beef and fish pie.
The first stop was Old Jameson Distillery in Dublin, where we teamed up with Emer, our bubbly, happy guide. ‘‘We take whiskey making seriously here at Jameson,’’ she said before missing a significant beat, then adding with a wink, ‘‘but we also take drinking it seriously.’’
As we toured the distillery, which dates to 1780 but closed as a working distillery in the 1970s when operations were moved to Midleton Distillery in County Cork, Emer explained the biggest differences between Irish whiskey and scotch whisky is that the Irish version is triple distilled and doesn’t have the smoky, peaty taste that is the hallmark of scotch.
She then took us through the complicated process of whiskeymaking, which begins with barley that’s malted in a kiln – the Gaelic word for oven – before it is milled to a flour-like coarseness.
Next it is mixed with pure Irish water in the mash-tun to produce wort — it sounds nasty but is actually sweet — which is then fermented to convert the sugar into alcohol. From there it is distilled to separate the water from the alcohol before being placed into handcrafted barrels for maturation.
With whiskey information overload, we finished our tour at the visitor’s centre, where a
These romanticsounding words simply translate to ‘water of life’.
quarter of a million visitors come each year, before heading south to Cork to visit the Old Midleton Distillery at the Jameson Heritage Centre.
While you can’t visit the actual working distillery, you can take an educational and historical tour of the superbly preserved old distillery to learn more of Jameson’s time-honed craft of producing whiskey, have lunch at the Malt House Restaurant, or browse the gift shop for distinctly Irish gifts.
Master distiller Crockett reiterates Emer’s comment that Irish whiskey is triple distilled, declaring the final product is ‘‘cleaner, more pure, and sweeter in taste, like apples, pears, and peaches’’.
Following an afternoon stop at the famed Ballymaloe Cookery School in Cork, our group, heads filled with a cornucopia of fruity images, travelled to County Westmeath to the Kilbeggan Distillery Experience, a gorgeously restored working distillery.
One of the things I most enjoyed about Kilbeggan, dating to 1757 and drawing about 45,000 visitors annually, was its amalgamation of unusual sounds, from the rhythmic ba-ba-boomba-ba-boom of some sort of mechanical gears grinding together to the flip-flipping of waterwheels to gurgling, bubbling streams.
Andrina Fitzgerald, who at 24 years old is one of the youngest whiskey distillers in Ireland, showed us a 185-year-old pot still, said to be the oldest in the world.
Northern Ireland was next in our sights, to the village of Bushmills in County Antrim. As we drove northward, I sighed contentedly at the emerald green and gorgeously lush scenery of Ireland’s pastures and craggy cliffs. It’s not called the Emerald Isle for nothing, and the serene countryside is punctuated by the bones of ancient castles, pastoral stone fences, and masses of fat, happy sheep and cattle.
Finally arriving in Bushmills after a stop at mythical Giants Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage site, we found a quiet Old World village crammed with taverns, shops, and restaurants. From our accommodations at Bushmills Inn, the distillery, which brings in about 120,000 guests a year, was less than a halfmile walk.
‘‘Bushmills is the heart of the Irish whiskey industry,’’ said our guide Robert Galbraith, before explaining the heritage of its distilling process really hasn’t changed in the more than 400 years since King James granted the first licence to distil in 1608.
We had booked a premium tour, so Galbraith took us to a comfortable tasting room. Before us sat glasses of whiskey, the liquid inside shimmering like gold from light pouring in through the windows.
The whiskey went down smoothly as we sipped our way through several centuries of production traditions. Quietly I raised a glass and silently said ‘‘slainte’’ (cheers) to King James.