Whiskey on a Saturday Afternoon

I can't think of a better way to spend a lovely Saturday afternoon than at the Jameson Distillery drinking  whiskey or in gaelic...uisce beatha (which translates to "Water of Life"). So that's what I did...

We left Cork at noon and set out for Midleton where the Jameson Distillery is located. It was nice to leave the city behind and spend time getting to know Cork. The fields are so green it's almost unreal! I guess that's what happens when you have misty rain everyday and some nice cool humidity. At least the last few days have been sunny... but oh so chilly! I keep reminding myself when I started shivering that it could be worse, I could be in Vermont where it's like negative degrees out. 

Once we got off the bus, the flyers didn't lie... the distillery was literally 1 minute from the bus stop. Take a left and there you are... Whiskey land. Walking up to the distillery there's a huge replica of a distillery pot which they term as pot stills. 

Inside, I was taken a back by all the green and empty Jameson bottles adorning the walls. One decoration stood out the most... the Jameson chandelier. Nice touch guys! I also loved the Whiskey barrel chairs which were incredibly comfy. We set off on our tour at 1ish.

The whiskey barrel chairs

How cool is that!

The tour was pretty standard, we walked through all the old distillery buildings and the tour guide told us what every thing was used for back in the day. I could just picture the workers in the distillery climbing the five stories of wooden stairs up the grain silo with 100lb bags of barely. And the court yard that was once full of farmers and horse and wagons selling their barley to make the fine whiskey. The distillery pots were massive! They took up two whole stories, it was like a giant orgo chem lab in there! But now they have a modern distillery built right next to the old one we were touring where all the whiskey is made. 

At the end of the tour I volunteered to be a whiskey taste tester. We tried Scotch whiskey, Irish whiskey, and American whiskey. They varied in the number of distillations and their taste... which were incredibly different! The scotch was really smokey tasting, american whiskey tasted like wood, and the irish had a sweet flavor... which i liked a lot.  

We ended the day by going to a cute cafe called Pantry's and I got this delicious Seafood chowder. There were literally chunks of seafood in it! 

Whiskey tasters!

On the whole, Ireland's be grand. I've been settling in to some what of a routine now after one week of classes. I'm making loads of grilled cheeses and trying to cook delicious dinners for myself. I've grown fond of the irish chips called Tayto... they have a cheese and onion flavor that is quite nice. I've got some exciting trips to look forward to in the next few weeks so that's been doing a pretty good job at taking my mind off being homesick.

On the Jameson bottles their is a crest with the motto Sine Metu "without fear" so I think I'm taking that to heart and enjoying every second I have.