Days That End in Y

Fairly early one afternoon in Dublin, I got rather sick of going to museum after museum and walked straight to the Jameson Distillery. There, I got a little sloshed and learned all about Jameson and whiskey distillation.

Arriving at The Old Jameson Distillery

Heading to the front door

JJ’s Bar at the front

Waiting for the next tour to begin

Our somewhat sarcastically excited Irish tour guide

A mock-up of the grain storehouse

Heading to the next part of the tour

Our tour guide describes something about grain

An old harvester

Water wheel

A model of the mill

Millstone—if I recall correctly, this is the one to rub for luck

Learning about step #4: mashing

The big no. 1 mash tun

Learning about washback

Washback No. 1

Describing the distillation process

Stills

Learning about coopering and what happens to barrels of whiskey

The taste test at the end. Unfortunately, I didn’t raise my hand fast enough.

Jameson also has a promotional video of the whole tour along with some pictures and other info. If you have a chance to visit, then you should definitely go! It’s a little pricey, but they make up for it by giving you whiskey.

Our southern neighbor Connecticut now apparently has a formalized wine trail. I’d always known there were wineries there (all fifty states in fact!), though I’d never realized there were so many!

Speaking of wine trails, during our trip along the Niagara Wine Trail last week, my girlfriend finally became enthused with the notion of wine tourism. (Interestingly, she’d never been a wine drinker in spite of–or because of?–her parents being true oenophiles.) As a result, we are definitely going to the Finger Lakes, specifically Cayuga Lake, this week. It’s a little soon after our last mini-break, but this is due to her starting a new job next week and my being gone for most of August through October. The car and hotels are booked, and we’re ready to go! Thanks, Steve-o for your comments! They really helped in my planning the trip.

Specifically, we’ll drive out to Ithaca, NY on Wednesday afternoon. The next day, we’ll slowly travel north along the western shore of Cayuga Lake, hitting each winery on the way. Then, we’ll drive back down to Ithaca to meet a friend for dinner. Unfortunately, we’ll have to drive back up to Auburn for a hotel due to practically every hotel in the area being booked this weekend! But that’s OK. Whatever we don’t get done on Thursday, we’ll then finish on Friday before driving back to Boston. And somehow, I’m going to tack on a trip to Ithaca Beer Co.. Shh! Don’t tell her about the beer! You can check out the approximate itinerary with Google Maps.

And as a bonus, here’s one more trail for your amusement. It’s not wine, though. Instead, it’s the American Whiskey Trail!

There’s really never been a better time for drinkers in America’s history since Prohibition.

Each batch Kentucky bourbon and Tennessee whiskey must be aged in new barrels, so what happens to the old ones?

I already knew that some of them were used for aging rum, tequila, and beer (the last wasn’t mentioned in the article, though). However, surprisingly, some of the end up being used for Scotch.

A Brown-Forman spokesperson says, “So the next time a friend of yours compliments the Scotch whisky he or she is drinking, you can tell them that one of the reasons it tastes so good is because it’s aged in a used Jack Daniel’s barrel.”

That’s right. Take that Scotch snobs!