Ye Olde Middleton Distillery

Yeah, Laurie would post before I got the other half of the weekend in there wouldn't she... Anyway, even after the missing of the bus and the being late to the distillery, I had a good time. I wish we had gotten to enjoy more of the tour, but the small bit we did learn about was nice too. That said, most of the particulars of the tour have escaped me now. I'm left with only a vague remembrance of the history behind the distillery and the process of distilling whiskey.

If you're wondering why the sign says Jameson, well, wonder no more. The distillery we visited is the predecessor to the new Jameson Distillery right next door. Midleton evolved into Jameson. Now, the small output of Midleton whiskey can cost over 600 euro, since it's only sold from the one distillery. Makes you wonder if the buyers drink it...

The large building used to be a wool mill, but was bought up by the Jameson family and converted. There are so many windows, if I remember correctly, due to the high risk of fire involved with whiskey making. If you look past the red chair of the random tractor thing, you may even see round dark circles on the buildings. These are the iron bars supporting the floor of the building, which in turn supports over 90,000 gallons of undistilled whiskey something or other.

I think that's what our tour guide said anyways. Whatever it was, they kept it in these giant vats.

This is where the magic happens.

This big tea kettle like construction is heated from a huge fire below (which used up to either 4,000 or 400 tons of coal--my tour memory is a little rusty). The vapors from the whiskey spirit went out through the spout and into another thingumy where cold water turned it back into liquid. the liquid goes from being eight percent alcohol to eighty percent alcohol. This happens three more times before it's considered good enough to be irish whiskey. America only does it once apparently. No worries though, the end product is always watered down.

Here's the top of it. More importantly, I got to ring the bell which signaled the people below that the fire was hot enough. The tourguide tried to cajole the many small children into it, but no one wanted to. I had to pull the rope twice before it gave a loud ring. Probably my favorite part of the Distillery. That said I did enjoy the whiskey tasting. We were given a glass of whiskey with whatever else we wanted to water it down with, in my case, coke. We also got to sip little watered down thimblefuls of other whiskeys. Out of the three irish whiskeys, the scotch (only distilled twice), and the american Jack Daniels (only distilled once), I liked the scotch the best. Jack Daniels was probably the grossest thing I've ever consumed. If I wanted to drink perfume, then...well...I'd be weird.

After an extremely long wait for the bus, we did finally roll back into Cork city. I was so starving by the time we got to Jackie Lennox's fish and chips shop, I ate the whole fish and half a pile of fries as big as my head. We're talking the thick, potatoey fries too. Okay the pile was as big as my head, not the fries. It's saying something when I can out-eat Laurie. Twas really good, but really greasy. I could still feel the coating of grease in my stomach the next day. Definitely not something I could eat with any kind of regularity.
Rest of the weekend not so entertaining. I went to the library, went home, and wrote my Anglo-Irish Lit paper. I think writing an essay on a poem about insanity may have driven me insane. Mnemosyne Lay in Dust by Austin Clarke is still a really good poem though. Took way longer to write the essay than it should've. At least that's one down, which leaves two art history papers to go. If somebody hadn't already checked out the books I need from the library, those would be a lot easier to write too. That said, the fun never ends and by fun I mean work and by work I mean adios amigos!