Jameson Distillery, Dublin?..

truecrippler

Hey, just a question or two.

I know Jameson have moved their distillery to Midleton, Cork but is the old distillery still open for tours in Dublin?

I've noticed that there's a whiskey tasting option. Standard is 8 euro and Premium is 22.50 euro. I'll take the premium please .

Anyways, anyone know if it's still open and whats the whiskey tasting like?

I just bought myself a bottle of 12 year old Jameson as I've been dying to try it. Might save up for the 18 year old if its worth it.

I've found a new appreciation for whiskeys... I'm still only a learner. :pac:

Cheers.

Brockagh

Yes, the Bow Street distillery in Dublin is open for tours. They recently renovated the whole thing, at huge cost. The old tastings there used to include Bushmills, Powers, Jameson and Paddy (I think paddy was included) and you'd compare them to a bourbon (Jim Beam) and a scotch (JW Red label). Since Bushmills was bought by Diageo, it's no longer in the tasting.

Never had the premium tasting there, but I'd assume you get the Jameson 12, Powers 12 and something like a Jameson 18 or Midleton. Not sure, really.

The tour is quite good, but they pretend that other whiskies don't exist in Ireland, that all Irish whiskey is triple distilled and that no Irish whiskey is peated. None of this is true, of course.

truecrippler

Sweet, sound great. I'm glad to hear they still do tours .

Might try the Premium tasting for the experience.

Bit of a brainwashing tour eh?.. ah well... sounds like fun :P.

Thanks a lot .

truecrippler

truecrippler wrote: »

Might save up for the 18 year old if its worth it.

It is. I bought a bottle last Christmas. Lovely stuff altogether.
Edit: My brother and I did the tour of the distillery in midleton a few months ago. There was a tasting session afterwards. They gave him(I was driving so I couldn't drink) the regular jameson, jack daniels and johnie walker black label.

Brockagh

Deleted User wrote: »

It is. I bought a bottle last Christmas. Lovely stuff altogether.
Edit: My brother and I did the tour of the distillery in midleton a few months ago. There was a tasting session afterwards. They gave him(I was driving so I couldn't drink) the regular jameson, jack daniels and johnie walker black label.

I like the 18 year old a lot, more so than the Midleton Very Rares, although both of them change all the time.

Brockagh

PS, I could have the overseas whiskies wrong in the tasting. I thought I remembered it as Jim Beam and JW Red, as they were the biggest selling American and Scottish whiskies in the world, respectively. I could be wrong, of course. Biggest selling doesn't mean the best.

IrishWhiskeyCha

The Scotch & American may change from time to time.

I did the regular tasting in Midleton

Line up was

Jameson, Paddy & Powers with Johnny Walker Red & Jack Daniels.

Hopefully for the premium tasting you'll get ...

Jameson 12, Powers 12yo & Jameson Gold at least and as long as they don't have comparison whiskies you might get to taste the Jameson 18 and possibly the Midleton if your really lucky.

The Jameson 18yo is a wonderful Whiskey but like the Midleton I sometimes wonder if it is worth the money. Wait till there is a 10% off in either Dunnes or Tescos

Brockagh

Brockagh wrote: »

I like the 18 year old a lot, more so than the Midleton Very Rares, although both of them change all the time.

I'd agree with that. I bought a bottle of midleton 2008 as well and was very disappointed with it. I would prefer to drink the bog standard jameson instead.

Mexico66

:)Irish Distillers closed down all their distilling operations in Dublin in the 1970's. The Jameson Distillery on Bow Street and the Powers Distillery on Thomas Street (now the home of NCAD, one of the pot stills is still visible on the college grounds). All distilling was moved to Cork, thus ending a centuries old industry in Dublin. In the 1790's the biggest business in Dublin was brewing beer, distilling whiskey and banking.

BeerNut

Mexico66 wrote: »

(now the home of NCAD, one of the pot stills is still visible on the college grounds)

Cool! I was through there last week and was wondering what they were.

Brockagh

Mexico66 wrote: »

:)Irish Distillers closed down all their distilling operations in Dublin in the 1970's. The Jameson Distillery on Bow Street and the Powers Distillery on Thomas Street (now the home of NCAD, one of the pot stills is still visible on the college grounds). All distilling was moved to Cork, thus ending a centuries old industry in Dublin. In the 1790's the biggest business in Dublin was brewing beer, distilling whiskey and banking.

There's lots of vegitation growing through the old Powers pot still. It's a bit sad, I think.

Actually, the Bow Street distillery closed before the Power's John's lane distillery, so some of the old Jameson stuff was produced in John's Lane for a short while before all the production moved to Cork.

The Midleton VR and the Jameson 18 are way overpriced. Jameson 18 should be around 50 euro, at most. It's very good, but not worth the money. Neither is the Midleton VR worth 150 euro.

The Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve is also massively over priced. Should be about 150 euro. It is very very good, though.

Blisterman

Brockagh wrote: »

The tour is quite good, but they pretend that other whiskies don't exist in Ireland, that all Irish whiskey is triple distilled and that no Irish whiskey is peated. None of this is true, of course.

You think that's bad, go to the Old Jameson Distillery in Midleton. The guide brings you around, showing all the old equipment that "Jameson" is made from, saying things like "This machine, which no other distillery has does xxx, which gives Jameson a smoother taste."

I found out later, that Jameson was never made there. Paddy was. Jameson bought over Paddy in the 60's, after the distillery had closed and used the Jameson branding, when opening the distillery to the public.

IrishWhiskeyCha

Jameson did not take over Paddy, but you are right the rubbish that comes from the marketing department and the Jameson mantra can be very annoying. Jameson it is part of Irish Distillers Group (IDG) which in turn became the Monopoly Irish Distillers Limited (IDL). Basically an amalgamation of Jameson, Powers & Cork Distillers(Paddy) in 1966 and became the monopoly in the early 70's when they took over Bushmills.

Between the effort to try and save the dying Irish Whiskey indusrty back in the 60's & 70's to the rebirth of Irish Whiskey in te 00's it was decided from a marketing point of view that Jameson would be the main brand behind which they would concentrate as a company. This was the because I presume of the good name of Jameson had internationally even though Powers had always out sold Jameson in Ireland up until very recently. Even Bushmills was slightly left languishing in the Background.

Now however we have a slightly more balanced approach to Irish Whiskey due to the fact the monopoly has been broken firstly due to the courage of Mr Teeling and co with Cooley and the recent sale of Bushmills to Diageo.

Pernod Ricard own Jameson and all the other Midleton brands
Diageo owns Bushmills who are now going to make a big push on Bushmills to try and compete with now rival Jameson.

and we have cooley as the young pretender creating all these wonderful own inhousee & independent expressions.

So heres to the future ....

BeerNut

And the next independent should be distilling down in Dingle in a year or two.

IrishWhiskeyCha

BeerNut wrote: »

And the next independent should be distilling down in Dingle in a year or two.

Yes if all goes to plan. It is a wonderfully tantalising prospect. The porter house guys were waiting for planning. Planning has now been granted but I just hope that the recession does not impact on their plans.

Lets keep the fingers crossed and hope that thi boutique distillery goes ahead.

BeerNut

On the flip side, I've heard from more than one industry bod that Pernod-Ricard are desperately in need of the Cooley resources and that its days as an independent could be numbered. Tragic if true.

Blisterman

It's ridiculous, that with all Ireland's Whiskey reputation, that there are only 3 Distilleries in the whole Island, only one of which is Irish owned. In a way the whiskey business is in a worse shape than the beer one.

Blisterman

Blisterman wrote: »

In a way the whiskey business is in a worse shape than the beer one.

I don't think so. Just going by what I see at work, whiskey sales are still going strong. The old reliables jameson/paddy/powers never really slumped, but jameson 12yo and some other aged whiskies sales are increasing.
Beers like bud and heineken are down but erdinger/franziskaner/duvel/tyskie and the like are on the rise

IrishWhiskeyCha

Most big businesses are not nationally owned so I would not worry about who owns Irish Distilleries. You could even say Guinness is not Irish owned any more. And the same goes for the majority of Scotch distilleries. Bowmore is owned by the Japanese. And Diageo and Pernod Ricard et al own numerous distilleries there.

And as Nialler says Irish Whiskey is actually on the crest of a wave at the moment with double digit growth figures in the last few years 12-15% each years since at least 2006 and probably going back further. Even though we slag off the corporate image of Jameson it is the Jameson brand that is leading this popularity in Irish Whiskey.

Irish Whiskey could not be in a healthier state.

But yes it would be nice to see a few more distilleries but probably not going to happen to quickly as it is a massive investment as it is probably a 10year project before you can start selling decent whiskey to market on a regular basis.

BeerNut

IrishWhiskeyCha wrote: »

Most big businesses are not nationally owned so I would not worry about who owns Irish Distilleries.

Gotta say, I'd prefer it if the profits from Irish whiskey making stayed in this country rather than paying the salaries of French executives.

IrishWhiskeyCha wrote: »

You could even say Guinness is not Irish owned any more.

You could even say it was never really Irish. When the company found that the tide of politics had stranded its brewery outside the UK it moved its headquarters to London and has been 100% British since 1927.

IrishWhiskeyCha wrote: »

And the same goes for the majority of Scotch distilleries. Bowmore is owned by the Japanese. And Diageo and Pernod Ricard et al own numerous distilleries there.

You don't think the tawdry story of how Diageo ended up owning half of Scotland's distilleries is an unpleasant one?

IrishWhiskeyCha

Totally agree with you BeerNut but just stating that unfortunately the cold reality is anything but....

It is up to us to support the independents in these hard times ... like you guys do with the independent beers. That is why I try to drink Galway Hooker as much as possible. It's great to see Independent (micro) breweries doing okay so far and long may it continue. Hopefully Cooley will survive on their own and this new whiskey distillery gets off the ground.

However in saying that, in one sense, I can't be overly critical of Irish Distillers because only for what they did, as horrible as it seems, there would be no Irish Whiskey Industry at all olny for the actions they took. And only for Pernod Ricard's clout I don't think Irish Whiskey would be enjoying the massive growth these past years that it has. They also deserve congratulations on the improved Jameson line up which is a much more exciting and cohesive range to compete with the massive Scotch corporations the likes of Glenmorangie, Glenfiddich, Glenlivet & Johnny Walker.

Jameson, Jameson Signature Reserve(Travel Retail), Jameson 12yo, Jameson Gold , Jameson 18yo & Jameson Rarest Vintage is a geat line up eventhough their pricing structure in Ireland has much to be desired.

IrishWhiskeyCha

Totally agree with you BeerNut but just stating that unfortunately the cold reality is anything but....

It is up to us to support the independents in these hard times ... like you guys do with the independent beers. That is why I try to drink Galway Hooker as much as possible. It's great to see Independent (micro) breweries doing okay so far and long may it continue. Hopefully Cooley will survive on their own and this new whiskey distillery gets off the ground.

However in saying that, in one sense, I can't be overly critical of Irish Distillers because only for what they did, as horrible as it seems, there would be no Irish Whiskey Industry at all olny for the actions they took. And only for Pernod Ricard's clout I don't think Irish Whiskey would be enjoying the massive growth these past years that it has. They also deserve congratulations on the improved Jameson line up which is a much more exciting and cohesive range to compete with the massive Scotch corporations the likes of Glenmorangie, Glenfiddich, Glenlivet & Johnny Walker.

Jameson, Jameson Signature Reserve(Travel Retail), Jameson 12yo, Jameson Gold , Jameson 18yo & Jameson Rarest Vintage is a geat line up eventhough their pricing structure in Ireland has much to be desired.

Brockagh

BeerNut wrote: »

On the flip side, I've heard from more than one industry bod that Pernod-Ricard are desperately in need of the Cooley resources and that its days as an independent could be numbered. Tragic if true.

As you probably know, they tried to buy Cooley before, but the monopolies commission (or whoever it was) ruled against the takeover. In fact, IDL ended up with a lot of Cooey stock at the time.

But IDL sold Bushmulls to Diageo, so maybe a takeover of Cooley would be allowed.

Their plan for the last takeover was to shut down Cooley...

Hopefully the Dingle distillery will get off the ground, but you never know. A few planned distilleries seem to have fallen by the wayside in the past - Coola Mills and Cloonaughill.

I think IDL should produce more limited editions and sell them for under 100 or 200 euro, instead of over 2,000 euro. A single malt over 20 years is not going to cost you over 200 euro (unless it's an Ardbeg or Macallan), but a pure pot still over 20 years will cost over 1,000 euro.

IrishWhiskeyCha

BeerNut wrote: »

On the flip side, I've heard from more than one industry bod that Pernod-Ricard are desperately in need of the Cooley resources and that its days as an independent could be numbered. Tragic if true.

Have you any more info on that or where the rumours have come from?

I would be hopefull that as long as Cooley puts in half decent profits that it may prove hard for Pernod-Ricard to make a take over bid. Even though it is a publicly list company there are a select few of shareholders who have more than a healthy interest in the company and as long as these people are happy and hold on to their shares then Cooley should stay in private hands.

I know John Teeling has a 25per cent stake and the other 5 directors own just under 25% between them too so I would of hoped that he has taken care not to have the company exposed to take over. Let's keep the fingers crossed

IrishWhiskeyCha

BeerNut wrote: »

On the flip side, I've heard from more than one industry bod that Pernod-Ricard are desperately in need of the Cooley resources and that its days as an independent could be numbered. Tragic if true.

Have you any more info on that or where the rumours have come from?

I would be hopefull that as long as Cooley puts in half decent profits that it may prove hard for Pernod-Ricard to make a take over bid. Even though it is a publicly list company there are a select few of shareholders who have more than a healthy interest in the company and as long as these people are happy and hold on to their shares then Cooley should stay in private hands.

I know John Teeling has a 25per cent stake and the other 5 directors own just under 25% between them too so I would of hoped that he has taken care not to have the company exposed to take over. Let's keep the fingers crossed

truecrippler

The missus is going to treat me on a day out to the Midleton Distillery in Cork soon .

I bought myself a Redbreast 12 year old there yesterday, I tried it at a bar and decided to buy some for 45 euro the next day... it was delicious. I haven't opened it yet. I'm thinking of starting a collection.

The date of the inside of the box is 26th March 2008, in the old Bow Street Distillery. One question about it; do they now make all their Whiskeys in Midleton?

The Midleton Very Rare was tempting but the price would have hit my wallet big time. I might appreciate it more if I buy it in a while.

Cheers.

IrishWhiskeyCha

Yes all of Irish Distillers whiskies are made in the New Midleton distillery. This is still considered one of the most modern distilleries in the world even though it was opened back in the early 70's, but young considering all the marking guff in regards to 1780 from Jameson or 1757 with Lockes. A big operation though and very efficient.

They produce all the Jameson Range, Midleton Very Rare, Paddy , Powers, Redbreast Tullamore Dew as well as the more obscure bottling of Dunphy's, Greenspot, Hewitts, Irishman (in part), Merry's & Murphy's Whiskies.

I just hope this does not double post like the last to posts :rolleyes: (Don't know what's happening there ???

Brockagh

You're right, of course, but I think they might still use some Bushmills malt for the Paddy, although I'm not 100% sure. Maybe they use the malt they make in Midleton every few years.

Midleton still supply the grain whiskey for Bushmills' blends in return.

I wonder/presume that Bushmills might start making their own grain in the future, considering Diageo own it now.

Brockagh

Brockagh wrote: »

I wonder/presume that Bushmills might start making their own grain in the future, considering Diageo own it now.

I thought they did, could well be wrong though.

Brockagh

Deleted User wrote: »

I thought they did, could well be wrong though.

Midleton used to make all the grain whiskey for Blackbush and Bushmills Original. I don't think they have installed any column stills in Bushmills yet, but maybe they have.

They had an arrangement with IDL after the split for the supply of grain whiskey.

I could be wrong too, of course.