Whiskey – it’s Irish for whisky

It’s a Scottish thing… to say ‘without the e’. Why? Because the Scots are too tight to give you the extra ‘e’.

No, that’s just my little joke, to get my retaliation in first.

We are of course nothing like this stereotype and are in fact very charitable.

And liable to go off on a tangent. So back to whiskey… and the launch of IrishWhiskey360°.

It’s the new brand and home of Irish whiskey tourism although of course Irish whiskey has been around for ever.

It’s the water of life, uisce beatha, after all while Bushmills Distilleryhttp://www.bushmills.com in Antrim is the oldest in the world.

There are 17 Irish whiskey distillery visitors centres or brand homes operated by Drinks Ireland/Irish Whiskey Association.

Ireland is aiming to become the number one destination in the world for whiskey tourism.

You can have that… and Scotland will be the top whisky destination.

A milllion welcomes

Last year there were 923,000 visitors to this island of Ireland.

And with the figures for this year set to go through the million mark that seems a very good reason to have a festival.

If any is needed.

The Festival of Irish Whiskey, supported by Failte Ireland as part of Taste the Island, will take place between Thursday, October 10 and Sunday, 13.

There will be 30 events and promotions in distilleries, brand homes and visitor centres across thew country.

The events will range across free and discounted tours, open days, whiskey tastings and food pairings to meet the distillers and more.

Now I’ve been on more distillery tours than I’ve had orange malted drinks (well, not really, but I’ve been to a lot).

And the best bit of them is not how it’s mashed but how we get smashed.

Of course I don’t mean that (drink responsibly everyone) but it’s the sample we get at the end of the tour that makes all the learning more palatable.

Visit http://www.IrishWhiskey360.ie. http://www.failteireland.ie,

Now all the distilleries are worthy of a mention and I’m ticking them off as I go.

But for here I’ll just flag up my local distillery, Powerscourt, and Slane. http://www.powerscourtdistillery.com http://www.slaneirishwhiskey.com.

No, I don’t miss much about my old work but one guy who was a diamond is Stephen.

Now Stephen is a whizz on IT and I was his best customer.

But he is even better on whiskey. And I was delighted to be able to invite him down to Slane as my Plus One.

Now that I think about it, Stephen, my screen is doing funny things here…

Drams are made of this

Here’s some whisk(e)y adventures… at least the ones I remember. https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/brexit-aberdeen-a-light-in-the-north/

And https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/swhisskey/

And look out every Thursday for my food and drinks column. https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/09/05/hungry-and-thursday-wrinkly-potatoes/.

Also my cocktail column https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/09/05/jocktails-tenerife-coffee-liqueurs/

Slainté