Toast Tuesday: Irish Whisky

I want y’all to click on that picture so you can get a better sense of what I am going to tell you.  That black speck on the left is Coe standing up to her belly in water.  From where she is standing to the road you see on the far right of this picture, is a straight line… a road in fact.  We have had so much freakin’ rain!

So, when we weren’t dodging downpours, I was inside sipping some Tullamore D.E.W.  I only had one whisky this week, and for me, it was an obvious choice.  Tullamore D.E.W is my friend Bitsy La Rue’s beverage of choice, so I toasted her this week.

Our author and guide on this journey notes that Irish whisky is smoother, slightly sweeter, and much more approachable than other whiskeys. I would agree with this statement.  He also alludes that this is a good gateway whisky for vodka drinkers because it is so smooth.  I really enjoyed this whisky neat, and this isn’t something I’ve enjoyed with the other spirits we have tried so far.

Everything comes in and out of fashion at some point.  Irish whisky was once the envy of the world before Scotch took over.  It’s all about technology and the still that they use. The key element to Irish whisky is that it is distilled three times.  Until the 1960’s Irish whisky was produced on a pot still, giving it interesting flavor elements that could not really be produced on a column still, but this was a longer and more time consuming process.  Because Scotch producers began using column stills, they had a more efficient and quicker process, and slowly took over over the market.

While Irish whisky was considered some of the world’s best, they eventually abandoned the pot stills in an effort to catch back up to Scotch.  With the recent popularity of craft distilling and a desire by many to drink better booze,  the pot still is making a comeback. For that we are grateful.  Tullamore D.E.W. has a great page where you can see their process in action, including their beautiful pot stills.  I’d much prefer the tour.

I made several cocktails this week, none of which were bad, but I think the whisky got lost because it is so delicate.  I never thought I would use that word to describe whisky, but there you have it.

Weeski

Blarney Stone

on ice

Porcellino’s chicken fried biscuit

Our guide

The one other thing I did this weekend in order to steer clear of the rain was to go to Porcellino’s for brunch on Saturday.  I had the fried chicken biscuit with sweet pepper jelly.  Oh my. oh my. oh my.  This was divine so I just had to throw this bit of food porn in for y’all.

This next bit is a test to see how much alcohol you have absorbed by osmosis from this blog post.  What do these two images have in common?

Check back tomorrow for the answer.  It’s kind of like the wonderword, but I’m not going to make you flip the page upside down.

Tullamore D.E.W has several awesome videos.  Including one where they discuss the “right” way to taste whisky.  I tried all three: neat, water, and ice.  I over poured my water, ice made it very easy drinking, but as I mentioned earlier, neat was beautiful all on it’s own.

So, here’s to Toasting to another Tuesday and may the luck of the Irish be with you this week!  I’m going to leave you with the parting glass.