Triple Distilled Communications – Page 25

Triple Distilled Communications

Local man starts working for INM, takes back everything he said about them
Via a series of most fortunate events, I have recently written a bit for the Irish Independent, Ireland’s biggest selling newspaper (by some distance). It’s nice to be back writing, especially the stuff for INM, which is more like the blog and less like the po-faced stuff I often did for print. Basically, I get to make obscure references and dick jokes, and get paid for it. It’s all good – especially since I recently spoke to a person who asked me the depressing question ‘so are you just a whiskey blogger now?’ I felt like crying.

That said, I’m not entirely certain how to describe myself – ‘writer’ sounds too pretentious, while ‘journalist’ is an outright lie, so really ‘word whore’ is the most accurate. Anyway, here is some of my waffling –

An Ode To The Middle Classes

It’s been a rough few years for the middle class. When Bertie Ahern stood up on April 2, 2008 to tell us he was standing down, it marked the end of a golden age for Ireland’s noblesse au premier degré. It was their JFK moment, a magic bullet that snapped their politics back and to the left. Over the following months, financial institutions fell to the ground like toddlers in a supermarket aisle, and the weary middle classes were expected to pick them up and dust them off. Suddenly they were the squeezed middle, crushed with debt to a point that they were forced to compact words into nonsensical portmanteaus – a wet weekend in Leitrim was a ‘staycation’, while being eaten alive by midges in a medium-sized tent was ‘glamping’. Harsh lessons were learned, like where the local Aldi and Lidl were located, along with the startling revelation that ‘Primark stuff is actually alright, actually’. But they survived, and lived to tell the tale of those cruel years; an Angela’s Ashes for a generation that sees iPads as a basic human right.

But things have been improving. There have been – whisper it – green shoots. Few people want to admit it, but things are not all that bad. So maybe it is time for the middle class to waken from their financial hibernation, dust off the debit card and reach once more for that capitalist rainbow of Having Nice Things And A Nice House. In case they need guidance, William Hanson, one of the UK’s leading etiquette experts, has compiled a list of 16 items that mean that you are, in fact, middle class.

Thank the lord for Mr Hanson’s list, as the portion of the brain that controls middle class urges, or HyggeThalmus, has grown dusty during its cryosleep. You can barely remember how to correctly pronounce quinoa, not to mind what it actually is, and no longer know for sure if Nespresso is more Fair Trade-y than fresh ground.

These are the middle class problems you now face. Ten years ago your problems included getting mild hypothermia whilst queuing overnight to pay 250k for a two bed apartment in a village that didn’t even have a Spar. Now your problems include the dilemma of being this moment’s greatest monster – a private landlord. But who needs that mud slung at them when there is AirBnB? No longer are you 2016’s version of Charles Boycott, now you are that middle class aspirational figure – The Perfect Host. You are Beverly and Tim from Abigail’s Party, welcoming guests from across the world to your beautiful bespoke two-bed flat in a village with no Spar, telling them about the many amenities in the surrounding area (including a Centra in the next town, a short five mile walk) and trying to figure out what exactly they plan to do in your (Primark) Egyptian cotton bed linens.

The cultural theorist Mary Douglas says that dirt is matter out of place – shoes on the floor are fine, shoes on the table are dirty. And so when your guests check out, you don the Marigolds and become a crime scene investigator, figuring out what matter went where, scrubbing away the general ickiness of Other People. But Other People are also your target demographic – you want to impress them, to fit in, to belong. You spend countless hours fretting over what shade of Le Creuset goes best with a stainless steel Rangemaster – the aquamarine or the bastard orange? You don’t want to discredit your kitchen, which cost a small fortune in 2007, an era in which having your domestic space designed by Porche somehow made perfect sense, as did the four clocks on the dining room wall giving the time zones in London, Tokyo, New York and Mullingar.

The must-have list for the struggling class, as compiled by Mr Hanson, is as follows:
- 1. Smart TV
A curveball straight from the get go. If you had been asked to guess, most people would have said ‘a bookcase’ would top the list, or, if they were being honest, ‘a dusty bookcase’. Because why would you ever need to open a book when even your TV is smart?
- 2. Dyson vacuum cleaner
A €600 vacuum that looks like it was designed by the doozers from Fraggle Rock, with clear plastic so you can see several dozen pieces of Lego rattling around it at 5,000 RPM.
- 3. Barbecue
A telling trait of the middle classes is their belief that things will somehow be ok. Tied into this vague optimism is the belief that barbecues are a thing that actually happen in the real world, not just in unrealistic Richard Curtis-scripted romcoms. This is a false belief that is as corrosive to the soul as Irish rain is to your B&Q kettle BBQ. But at least the spiders have somewhere to shelter from the rain.
- 4. Vinyl records
You tell everyone they sound better, but you really don’t know anymore in this world of FLAC and Beats by Dre. But there are people here for a dinner party, so they might be impressed by your ironic use of Demis Roussos to soundtrack the frantic smashing of avocados in your Porche kitchen.
- 5. iMac
You secretly love your iMac more than you love your kids.
- 6. Nutribullet
Don’t call it a blender. It’s so much more than that. How much more? Two blades more. That is your line and you are sticking to it.
- 7. Antler or Samsonite luggage
Strictly for the carry-on – the rest of your belongings are stuffed into bin bags in the hold, where nobody can see them.
- 8. Wood burning stove
Wood, newspapers, sweet wrappers, nappies. Anything flammable really. Those pine logs are really more for display purposes.
- 9. Spiralizer
Who hasn’t looked at a courgette and thought ‘what this watery mess needs is to be served in ribbon form, to drag the experience out even longer’? You, that’s who. But somehow you still own a spiralizer.
- 10. Mulberry bag
You secretly love your Mulberry bag more than you love your iMac and your kids combined.
- 11. Matching coasters
Cohesion. Order. Control. Constant judgement. Constant disappointment. You know: Matching coasters.
- 12. Boiling water taps
Taps that spit out boiling water – what a time to be alive. Tea has never been so unsettling, and your hands have never been so sore. If only science would hurry up and invent a cold tap too.
- 13. Hot tub
This is where Mr Hanson’s list starts to move away from the good old Irish middle class and into the realm of Hollyoaks and that episode of Grand Designs where they stuffed a hot tub and pampas grasses into their tiny back garden. Hot tubs are expensive, tedious and will never shake off the whiff of dubious activity, no matter how much chlorine you dilute the (mostly rain)water with. You may see yourself as a suburban Dorian Gray, but atop the Stira to your attic, that portrait is riddled with Legionnaires Disease.

The middle classes are meant to be repressed – nobody went for dinner in Lord Byron’s house because they were scared of what he might have done to the food. Please tone it down.
- 14. Aga range cooker
Like a Range Rover you park in the kitchen, this is borderline upper-middle class, as are having an actual knowledge of wine, or owning a small blowtorch just for caramelising the sugar on your creme brulee. Keep going on like this and it’ll be wax jackets and clay pigeons before you can say ‘formers morket’.
- 15. Smeg fridge
Presumably taken from the Swedish word for smug, you don’t need to tell anyone you got this hulking beast on the first day of the January sales for a mere ten euro, because your smirk has broadcasted it to every coffee morning in the parish. Everyone hopes it falls on you some day.
- 16. Brompton bike
The fact they can be folded away means they are easier to steal. You will never see one of these anywhere other than on DoneDeal or in the Liffey at low tide.

That is Mr Hanson’s complete list, which failed to mention piano lessons, blazers, knowing a European language and owning a memory foam mattress. However, the most egregious omission was that of the most middle class trait of all – the fear that you might not actually be middle class.
December 3, 2016
My weekend in photos. In other words, I basically didn’t go anywhere or do anything.

November 27, 2016
A few photos from the dark waters of Cappoquin, where I got to meet Peter Mulryan; author, raconteur and Heston Blumenthal of Irish distilling. He’s been pushing the boundaries with some of his work in Blackwater Distillery (and the boundaries pushed back on occasion), but his really is an inspirational story of someone switching over from writing to doing – a courageous move for any journalist. You can read the interview in the Canadian magazine Distilled, but there are really interesting things ahead for Peter and his team.

November 20, 2016
Hillwalking last weekend in The Vee on the Tipp/Waterford border. The lake is haunted.

November 20, 2016
7.12.14. NO REPRO FEE : Social Pics : Conor Mc Gann and Amanda Mann Irish Craft Cocktail Awards 2014 at the Licquor Rooms, Wellington Quay. Photo by Richie Stokes

7.12.14. NO REPRO FEE : Social Pics : Eoin Redmond and Emily Mc Vey Irish Craft Cocktail Awards 2014 at the Licquor Rooms, Wellington Quay. Photo by Richie Stokes

7.12.14. NO REPRO FEE : Social Pics : Eoin Redmond Genie Petrouskaite Irish Craft Cocktail Awards 2014 at the Licquor Rooms, Wellington Quay. Photo by Richie Stokes

7.12.14. NO REPRO FEE : Social Pics : Flick Cantwell and Hannah Moyne Irish Craft Cocktail Awards 2014 at the Licquor Rooms, Wellington Quay. Photo by Richie Stokes

7.12.14. NO REPRO FEE : Social Pics : Laura Brandibat and Ariane Denham Irish Craft Cocktail Awards 2014 at the Licquor Rooms, Wellington Quay. Photo by Richie Stokes

7.12.14. NO REPRO FEE : Social Pics : Marie O ‘ Neill and Gareth Lambe Irish Craft Cocktail Awards 2014 at the Licquor Rooms, Wellington Quay. Photo by Richie Stokes

7.12.14. NO REPRO FEE : Social Pics : Mary Ryan and Keith Malone Irish Craft Cocktail Awards 2014 at the Licquor Rooms, Wellington Quay. Photo by Richie Stokes

7.12.14. NO REPRO FEE : Social Pics : Oisin Davis Irish Craft Cocktail Awards 2014 at the Licquor Rooms, Wellington Quay. Photo by Richie Stokes

7.12.14. NO REPRO FEE : Social Pics : Robert Caldwell and Linda O ‘ Rourke Irish Craft Cocktail Awards 2014 at the Licquor Rooms, Wellington Quay. Photo by Richie Stokes

The Irish Craft Cocktail Awards……..2014. Found these on my hard drive and need to clear some space, so here they are…..two years later.

November 20, 2016
Red dawn

I’ve long been a fan of Writers Tears – even on a purely aesthetic level, I would sing its praises. Fortunate then that, beneath the surface, it is also a cracking whiskey. Walsh have recently released another expression in the family, and because every Irish family has at least one ginge in it, this one is titled Red Head.

This is billed as ‘a triple distilled single malt’ – so this is the point where I tap my nose, wink at you and mouth the word ‘Bushmills’. You furrow your brow, mis-lipread and think I mouthed ‘punch me’ and we end up in a tremendous donnybrook that makes the Táin Bó Cúailnge look like an especially weak episode of WWE Raw.

The official line is thus:

This exquisite, triple-distilled single malt is matured only in select handpicked Spanish sherry butts which have previously been seasoned with the finest Oloroso sherry. It is the influence of these scarce butts that give this expression of Writers Tears its signature rich, ruby hue and hence the moniker – ‘Red Head’. The expression is distilled without chill filtering as nature intended and at a distinctive 46% ABV.

So what of my slightly-pissed tasting notes:

A real sweetness on the nose, lots of rich caramel (the foodstuff, not the colouring) in there, a little bit of clove and cinnamon. Palate-wise – more spices than I expected, a lot of really nice heat from that extra bit of ABV, definitely feeling that orange peel note touted in the official tasting notes. The finish is not the 2001: A Space Odyssey-style epic the notes suggest, but it has more of the spice and less of the sweetness from the nose. For less than €50, and a NAS to boot, you cannot expect some multi-layered labyrinth of flavour. I prefer the standard Copper Pot expression, and would still recommend it over this, but this Red Head still has more soul than your average ginger.

November 19, 2016
Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam

Ah Whiskey Live Dublin: I find it hard to know who I feel more sorry for – me or the vendors. They have to stand there for hours, pouring dram after dram for tedious bore after tedious bore, smiling and nodding as people like me refuse to take ‘NAS’ for an answer. It must be a gruelling hell for them.

And then there is my sympathy for myself – a middle aged man cheerfully going to a whiskey event in the middle of the day, droning on and on at salespeople about barrel types and trying to get them to tell you which distillery their product may or may not have come from, as I slowly come undone from all the whiskey they keep plying me with just to shut me up. We are locked together in our immortal struggle, nerds and reps wrapped in the tentacles of marketing, hacking away with question after question about what it is that actually makes the product different.

To most sane people, the grilling of reps at these events must look like a scene from ComicCon, as two Worfs argue in Klingon about whose costume is canon. And yet, Irish Whiskey Live is like Christmas for the whiskey geek, a day to meet fellow enthusiasts and try some great whiskey.

Being a hardcore whiskey nerd can be a solitary affair – I imagine it’s not dissimilar to being really, really, really into SeaQuest DSV or Monk: It is a niche fandom. You’d think that being a delicious substance that also gets you hammered would be enough, but no. Not many people get the bug that turns them into some tweed-clad beast, a distillery-obsessed Silas Marner, filling rooms of their house with bottle after bottle of rare expressions. But I got the bug, and now I have turned into a full blown Patient Zero, skipping about the Printworks of Dublin Castle like the monkey from Outbreak, toxic with enthusiasm for whiskey, breathing boring sentences into the faces of all.

I’ve gone the last three years – the first year on my Toblerone, the second year with my brother in law, and this time with my biological paternal half sister who I’ve only met a handful of times. Yes, that sentence asks more questions than it answers, but the explanation is as long and meandering as a particularly shitty piece of whiskey marketing narrative, so I will skip it. Suffice to say that like the best drams, I am a complex spirit.

This year was the busiest I have seen. In fact, it was too busy. The place was packed, leading one whiskey blogger I met to suggest that they should go back to having a session for trade (and hardcore geeks) and another for The Normals.

My own feeling was that it could definitely go across two days – perhaps two longer days, rather than two sessions each day. It’d be great to see a 1pm – 6pm, two-day event, as in the last three years I have never managed to hit more than about 40% of the stalls. And this year there were more and more stalls, more and more whiskeys, more and more questions, and even more reps to bore.

Also: Allow the stands to sell bottlings. I have no idea about the logistics of this, not to mind the legality, but I’ve been to town-hall whisky fairs in Scotland where you can pick up bottles of the drams on offer – sometimes rare, sometimes cheap, sometimes just really good whisky that is a nice memento of a good day out. Obviously this might be a slight conflict of interest with the event organisers, the Celtic Whiskey Shop, but even if they set up a stand selling some of the bottlings, it would be an added bonus.

So this year was my most inefficient, in terms of drams and chats. A few newcomers did stand out – Tipperary, Boann and the hedgerow gin from Blackwater. All three are brands I admire with an interesting story, so to see them pushing ahead and working towards whiskey production is great. Same goes for Spade and Bushel from Connaught – you’d easily forget they are there, as the media seems to forget that there are distilleries beyond Dublin, but they are quietly working away way out west.

And so to Teeling, who recently took the surprising stand of sort-of endorsing the Repeal The Eighth movement. Brands don’t usually get political – it’s too divisive and can drive customers away. But Teeling are bucking that trend and taking a stand. I was bemused to see some tweets about the move, as people who never drank whiskey declared they would now never drink one particular whiskey.

Such a shame, as it might chill the fuckers out. Ah well, more for us.

At the IDL stand I spoke to one rep about their recent purchase of a neighbouring farm. He called it a strategic investment with no firm plans for it. In fact, it is a massive slice of land adjacent to their own site, and it comes with zoning for industrial development and a planned access road. They cannot fulfil the demand there is for their whiskeys as it stands, so I would imagine they will be putting in some serious plans for those lands in the next 12 months. They have more than enough space (and options for more) in the Dungourney woods, and while they have another three stills coming in from Rothes next year, I would imagine there are already plans being drawn up for another production facility.

I failed to ask any of the UK vendors how they felt about Brexit, or ‘The Great British Fuck Off’ as it is also known. I’ve done well out of it so far; in the immediate aftermath of the vote my shopping with Master Of Malt was never such good value, as the pound took a dive. It’s also interesting to note that the head of the SWA, which backed Remain, has since left to work with Boris Johnson. As will be the case here in the next five to ten years, the export markets are key to survival – and maintaining the easiest, most cost effective route to them is vital. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

I also spoke to Sean from Dingle Distillery about the sad passing of Oliver Hughes, and what a pity it is that he isn’t here to see them readying their product for market. I also tried a drop of their own whiskey for the first time (I had maturing spirit there two years ago and was very impressed) and really liked it. Young, obviously, but just really different to almost everything else I had that day. I look forward to getting my hands on a bottle so I can properly sample some of Oliver’s great legacy.

This year’s Irish Whiskey Live was bigger and better than ever, and hopefully it will spread across two days at some point in the next few years. There were more stands, more people, and an incredible buzz – in all, it was what the Klingon people would describe as ‘Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam’ – a good day to die.

November 19, 2016
Bow legged

It’s hard to know what makes a good pub. How does any publican connect with the sweet spot where good location, welcoming ambience and a decent pint intersect? If you were stuck for an answer here in Cork, Benny McCabe would be a good man to ask. Over the last two decades he has managed to turn around a selection of venues in various states of decline into booming businesses. You can see the full list of pubs here, and marvel at the sheer variety – but they all have one thing in common; absolutely no pretensions. There are no Celtic Tiger, glam ‘n’ glitz, minimalist fishtank bars; all are good, honest-to-god pubs.

A few years back one of the reporters for the Echo asked Benny the secret of his success, and he simply replied ‘I’m just a fat guy who likes beer’. Obviously, it goes a little deeper than that, but it is often the simple things that lead to success – Benny knows a good pint when he sees one, and he knows that this is the rock upon which the publican builds his church.

My first encounter with Benny was in one of his first pubs, McCabe’s on Parliament Street. It was small and atmospherically dingy, populated by what would become a trademark of his venues – a massively diverse clientele; punks, pinstripes, and Bernie Murphy. He would see me come in the door and pull me a pint, and it was that Cheers moment of walking into a place ‘where everybody knows your name’. Or at least, sort of knew my name – he called me Murf for some reason, and I never bothered to correct him, as he just seemed like a nice guy.

His wife would pop in from time to time, sometime pushing a buggy, with a cheerful little baby ensconced within. Fast forward two decades to a fortnight ago, when I had a Death In Venice moment as I realised that the person serving me a slice of pizza in the Crane Lane was that baby, in her 20s now. I felt a thousand years old already, having gone to the gig in my work clothes (a particularly tacky plaid three-piece suit that Conor McGregor would think twice about) and being surrounded by young hipsters. But then McCabe Jr – a Jameson ambassador, marketing graduate and model – rolls up and suddenly I feel death’s icy grip on my throat, his ghastly whisper in my ear; ‘why are you here old man? This is a place for the young. You are old, take your loose skin and old balls and fuck off home to wait for death’.

Except obviously I didn’t go home, as there free pizza and live music and, hey, I’m not quite dead yet. No, like the rock beast I am, I waited until 10pm, and then went home to my memory foam mattress, as sleep is now more important to me than loud music.

Still, it’s not like I was the only senior citizen at the event: There were others my age, like the barman Andy, who went to school with me and now runs his own mixology business, or Dave Quinn, head of science with IDL, or Shane Long of the Franciscan Well. Except, obviously they were there for work reasons. So why was I there? Well for one, I was invited. Two; I like free stuff. Three; I like music. I used to go to gigs all the time, but now I am part of the ‘too young to die, too old to rock’ demographic, Whiskey Live has become my Monsters Of Rock. Still. Did I mention that this event had free pizza?

There were three acts on the bill in the Crane Lane – beatboxers Amaron and Magic, Nordie indie kids Pleasure Beach, and Wyvern Lingo. The event was held under the banner of the Bow Street Sessions, in honour of the fact that Jameson still have Bow Street on the labels despite none of their whiskey being distilled there for decades. I’m kidding – but it is hard to know what qualifies as a celebration of heritage and what is simple false provenance. And that’s coming from a Corkman with a ludicrous Dublin accent.

Beatboxing has to be seen live to appreciate it, much like up-close magic or a Tijuana donkey show. There is little point in listening to beatboxing on your phone as a machine can do it better. As an opening act, Amaron and Magic were excellent, a curious mix of mnemonic freakshow and hip-hop ventriloquism. Let’s call them the larynX-Men. Let’s not actually, as that is shit.

Next up were Pleasure Beach, who sound like descendants of Pulp, Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, and possibly even The Waterboys, a sort of Pitchfork ‘who’s who’ circa 2002. They were excellent, and at this stage the whiskey cocktails were slowly eroding my awareness that I was dressed like a Jazz Age social diarist, so everything sounded great, everything was great, hey maybe I’m not the oldest person here, where’d I put my drink etc etc.

Next up were the headliners Wyvern Lingo, and, as the crowds went wild, I went home on the 10.15pm bus, because I was pretty tired from raging against the dying of the light, and also from standing for more than 30 minutes.

My thanks to the good people at Burrell PR for inviting me and my long-suffering current wife along. Thanks also to the photographer who promised to make me look less like a human oil slick, and instead made me look like a human Werther’s Original, whilst also Tubridifying me by stretching the photo:

We used to be young and wild. What the fuck happened? I mean, apart from falling in love and having four kids and growing old gracefully.

As a footnote, here is footage of one of the greatest gigs I’ve ever been at – the mighty Jesus Lizard in Fibber McGee’s many millennia ago.

If you’re watching that in work, you might want to know that the deranged frontman David Yow gets bollock naked about ten minutes in. Insane.

November 18, 2016
Burning in water, drowning in flame

I almost drowned when I was eight. It was at Inchydoney beach, near where my dad is from; I was in the water, close to the shore. I took a step back and fell into a channel and disappeared under the water. I can still remember it – the blue haze of the water down there, the burning as seawater filled my throat and lungs, the silence. After a minute my mum dragged me out. The next year the exact same thing happened in the exact same spot. After that we swam on the main beach, away from the channels.

Trips to my mum’s family home were less eventful. I can remember my grandmother sending me out to the shed at the back to load up a steel bucket with turf for the range as she made massive pots of marmalade. Those two memories always come back to me when I taste Laphroaig Quarter Cask – burning seawater, citrus, sugar and peat smoke. Known colloquially as the medicinal malt, one of the best comparisons proffered on the Islay icon is that it ‘tastes like a burning hospital’. As someone who works in a hospital that has yet to go on fire, I couldn’t possibly confirm or deny – but I do know of one part of the building that always reminds me of Laphroaig. There is a day-unit where cancer patients attend to get their infusion of chemotherapy. It is, like much of the hospital, a place of joy and hope, sickness and sadness. Within the unit, there is a storeroom for medicines, records, medical equipment: Whatever the combination of items in there, it smells like Laphroaig QC. I always feel guilty for thinking this when I’m in there – this is a place where people come to desperately try to continue their lives, and picking up a whisky note is glib, if not ghoulish. But it is what it is – I can’t consciously control my memory, if I could I would probably erase much of the Nineties. So being reminded of drowning, peat fires or the smell of chemotherapy is not something I can summon or dismiss.

Working in a hospital, even shuffling paperwork, isn’t an easy job. You see a lot of amazing things, but you also see a lot of loss. I can feel it since I lost my dad. I’m working in the outpatients department, around the corner from the radiotherapy department where he was treated. Sometimes I walk through there and it just pops back into my head – he is gone. During the week I was walking through one of the wards on the fifth floor, chasing down a chart for a clinic. I got a sudden hit of deja vu and stopped in my tracks, realising I was in the ward dad was in when he was first diagnosed. In the four beds in the ward were another four elderly men, possibly facing the same fate as him. And this is it – an endless rolling mill of short lives on an old planet. During the week I met the cancer nurse who cared for my dad (and my mum). She told me it was early days, that every first will bring it all back. Last week was the first Halloween. I remember when I was a kid at Halloween, my dad cutting a slice of barmbrack and I spotted the ring in it, so he gave the slice to me. For such devout Catholics, my parents always embraced the pagan feasts with enthusiasm. It’s not hard to see why our forefathers celebrated Samhain. The end of the harvest, and the start of a winter that may or may not kill you – why not have a bit of craic before you go into hibernation? Just like Christmas – the midpoint in the bleakest time of the year – it is a functional celebration, rooted in nature.

The photo above (by DMoon1) is of the Mound Of The Hostages in Meath. Similar in layout to Newgrange, it is a neolithic tomb that contains between 200 and 500 bodies. Two days of the year the light of the sun illuminates the central corridor – Samhain, what we now know as Halloween, and Imbolc, the day in February marking the end of winter (which the Christians rebranded as St Brigid’s Day). Samhain is the day when the walls between worlds are at their weakest, allowing the dead to walk the earth. Tombs like the Mound Of The Hostages were seen as portals to the other side. Throughout history we have always wanted to believe there is somewhere else. We call the dead ‘the departed’, and talk of them being gone, as though they have left on a journey, or crossed over to another plane. I’d love to think that was the case, but to me there is nothing else, only this. We live and die, and some stuff, good and bad, happens in between. Even my dad, who came from a generation where faith was bred into them, couldn’t talk about another world at the end. He occasionally mentioned how his faith was helping him, but I could see he didn’t fully believe that he was heading on some journey. He knew there was nothing else, no great reunion in the sky for him, my mum and my sister. There was only goodbye to all this.

I can feel the grief gnawing away at me, but I know that with time it will ease off. One of the hardest aspects of it is the message that comes with losing someone – someday I will be over too. And not just that, so too will everyone I know and love. My wife will die, my kids will die, their kids will die. We stop, and they put us in the ground, and that is it. I try to look on the bright side – I am probably only 50% of my way through my time. My lifespan is either half empty or half full, depending on how glum I feel.

What I love about Laphroaig is how it polarises people, lays bare our personal tastes and bias. You will see a review that will say ‘this is disgusting, it tastes like band-aids and peroxide’. Another review will say ‘this is amazing, it tastes like band-aids and peroxide’. We are all different, but deep down we are essentially the same. Yesterday I met a man who had just lost his wife. I didn’t know this until I asked if his next of kin was the person listed, and he started to cry. I apologised, on the verge of tears myself. We choked it down, and moved on. I came home and hammered down several generous measures of Laphroaig and contemplated the dumb luck of working in the hospital that treated my mum, dad and sister before they died, and smells like a whisky I particularly like. I’m glad I didn’t drown in Inchydoney. It would have been a pretty shit turn of events for me. I would have missed a lot of stuff – good and bad – and I never would have learned to enjoy something that tastes like band aids and peroxide.

November 14, 2016
Deck the hall

A new Powers has been released in celebration of a pub I have never been in. Details:

Powers Irish Whiskey and the iconic The Long Hall celebrate the pub’s 250th Anniversary with an exclusive, limited edition Single Cask Release.

The Long Hall on South Great George’s St is one of Dublin’s oldest and most loved pubs. With its iconic Victorian interior that has been preserved so well, the pub offers charm and originality in spades. The opulent mahogany and mirror details date from an 1881 refurbishment, but the first license was granted in 1766, making 2016 the 250th anniversary of the pub.
The Long Hall is currently owned and operated by Marcus Houlihan, and has been in the Houlihan family for 44 years, having previously been owned by his parents Gerry and Carmel Houlihan. Through their research they have found this to be the longest time the pub has been in the one family in its 250 year history.
Twenty five years after the opening of the premises, James Powers established his distillery nearby at John’s Lane in 1791 and began producing his distinctive pot still style whiskey, with its complex and spicy flavour. To this day, Powers Gold Label is regarded by many as the quintessential Irish Whiskey.
To mark the occasion of The Long Hall’s 250th birthday, Powers have commissioned an exclusive, limited edition Single Pot Still expression. Powers ‘The Long Hall’ Single Cask Release has been hand selected by Master Blender Billy Leighton, in collaboration with The Long Hall. It bears the hallmark spicy flavours of Powers, complemented by the creamy mouthfeel which is a key characteristic of Irish Pot Still whiskey. A finishing in American bourbon barrels adds to the complexity and allows the distillate driven style to shine.
Powers ‘The Long Hall’ Single Cask Release will be available exclusively from The Long Hall.

Tasting Notes –
Nose: Bold Pot Still Spices of cinnamon and orchard Fruits give way to a zesty citrus finish balanced with charred oak and a touch of black peppercorns.
Taste: Initial vanilla sweetness and green pepper is given an edge by a hint of chili oil reflecting the Pot Still style. A hint of citrus introduces some softer fruit for unique taste complexity bound with American Oak tones.
Finish: The Pot Still spices linger ending in a combination of wood and barley.

IDL previously released a Powers tie-in with The Temple Bar – so here are some pics from the launch some years ago:

Master Distiller Barry Crockett and Tom Cleary at the launch of Powers Single Cask Release Whiskey at The Temple Bar ,Dublin Pic:Brian McEvoy No Repro fee for one use

Master Distiller Barry Crockett at the launch of Powers Single Cask Release Whiskey at The Temple Bar ,Dublin Pic:Brian McEvoy No Repro fee for one use

Paul Fitzpatrick and Lisa Fitzpatrick at the launch of Powers Single Cask Release Whiskey at The Temple Bar ,Dublin Pic:Brian McEvoy No Repro fee for one use

Leah Kilcullen and Susan Burke at the launch of Powers Single Cask Release Whiskey at The Temple Bar ,Dublin Pic:Brian McEvoy No Repro fee for one use

Jackie Cleary and Angela Stack at the launch of Powers Single Cask Release Whiskey at The Temple Bar ,Dublin Pic:Brian McEvoy No Repro fee for one use

Grace O Sullivan and Rebecca Lawless at the launch of Powers Single Cask Release Whiskey at The Temple Bar ,Dublin Pic:Brian McEvoy No Repro fee for one use

Grace O Sullivan and Master Distiller Barry Crockett at the launch of Powers Single Cask Release Whiskey at The Temple Bar ,Dublin Pic:Brian McEvoy No Repro fee for one use

They also released a special edition to celebrate the brand’s long association with transatlantic travel, one of my favourites in the range, apart from the John’s Lane release, an unfuckwithable classic. But if these suggestions don’t tickle your fancy, there is always these new releases from Walsh Whiskey:

Walsh Whiskey Distillery has released its 2016 cask strength vintages for both of its super premium whiskeys – The Irishman & Writers’ Tears. Both releases are very limited with 1,800 bottles of The Irishman & 2,640 bottles of Writers Tears’ available in just 14 countries between them worldwide (The Irishman is available in 11 and Writers’ Tears in 8 countries).

The Irishman Cask Strength 2016

A rare cask strength expression (54% ABV), limited to only 1,800 bottles, each of which is uniquely numbered and signed by founder Bernard Walsh. The Irishman Cask Strength 2016 is a vatting of Single Pot Still & Single Malt, matured in first-fill bourbon casks. Non chill-filtered, it was bottled in September 2016 and is presented in an elegant wood cask.

Describing this year’s cask strength release of The Irishman, Bernard Walsh said: “This rare cask strength expression is matured and aged in oak bourbon casks that I personally hand-selected to showcase the pinnacle of Irish whiskey. This whiskey is ripe, full and elegant. Delicate forest fruits dovetail with mellow spices and orchard berries, all giving way to a long gentle finish of barley and dark chocolate bursting with complexity and flavour. I hope the lucky few who acquire this release enjoy every moment.”

The Irishman Cask Strength 2016 is available in just 11 countries including Ireland, Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Luxembourg, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the USA.

The RRP is €120.

Writers’ Tears Cask Strength 2016

Writers’ Tears Cask Strength 2016 is a triple-distilled blend of aged Single Pot Still and Single Malt Whiskey from casks of the finest selected distillates. It is non chill-filtered at 53% ABV and carefully aged in bourbon barrels. Bottled in September 2016, it is limited to only 2,640 bottles worldwide and each bottle bears its own unique number and the signature of Walsh Whiskey Distillery founder Bernard Walsh.

Introducing the 2016 vintage of Writers’ Tears Cask Strength, Bernard Walsh described this very limited release as follows: “To me it presents elegant and luscious notes of poached pear, sweet barley and creamy oak. It offers the palate hints of white chocolate and red fruit and, to finish the experience, we get delicate mandarin tones with oak powering through single pot still spice. I am proud to commend it to old and new followers of Writers’ Tear alike.”

Writers’ Tears Cask Strength 2016 is available in just 8 countries, namely: Ireland, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Holland, Poland, and Ukraine.

The RRP is €120.

November 14, 2016