Few people have any real idea what public relations actually entails. I certainly didn’t until I managed to blag my way into a summer internship in a high-profile firm in 2001. It was a great experience – it was a well-established Dublin-based company that mostly dealt with luxury brands and business-to-consumer stuff. It was also quite the education – up to that point I had no clue how to even answer a phone properly. Thankfully on the first day someone took the time to tell me that picking up the phone and yawping ‘hullo’ down the phone was simply not the done thing. I somehow mastered answering the phone in a semi-professional manner, and a few other basic tasks – I was basically Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada, only with a flat east Cork accent.

During my time with the firm I got to work with and meet lots of great people, but learned early on that it’s not all smiles and sunshine. PR agencies are the firewall that protects the client from the media-driven outrage-athon, and they get little thanks for it. So always be nice to the PR firm. And I’m not just saying that because I got this in the post today:

I first met the guys from Burrell PR around this time last year when they helped organise the broadcast of Sean Moncrieff’s Movies and Booze on Newstalk down in the distillery in Midleton; you can read my coverage of the event here. The focus there was also on this great drink. Redbreast was the first pot still whiskey I tried and it is still one of my favourite whiskeys. As Master Distiller Emeritus Barry Crockett describes it, it’s Christmas cake in a glass – stewed winter fruits, toasted nuts and oak, and that rich warm glow, a velvet thickness that just wraps itself around you. If you are looking for a gift for the whiskey fan – be they novice or nerd – Redbreast is a great, affordable option; at 65 yoyo, it is actually great value for money… in whiskey terms, at least. Again, I’m not just saying that because I got a bottle of it as a present. And anyway, I don’t think a post about whiskey on Ireland’s least successful blog qualifies as ‘leveraged coverage by a key influencer’ or even makes me as a ‘bribe unit‘. But as today is my last day off before nine days straight working in one of the busiest A&Es in the country, it really did lift my spirits. So thank you.