Whiskey Distillery Dublin

Visited Pearse Lyons few months back. I would give it a miss.

The Pearse Lyons tour is more interesting for the graveyard and history aspect. The Dublin Liberties distillery is fine and could be combined with Teelings. Overall Teelings gets my vote, but I haven’t done Roe & Co yet.

BeerNut wrote: »

It always bugs me when distilleries do this. "Here's our product which takes massive amounts time and skill to make. Now we're going to put a load of sugar and water into it."

Relax you get a straight whiskey as well, you get a regular measure separately but they also let you make your own cocktail. You get two drinks. Therefore they target people who just want a regular whiskey and others who might prefer a cocktail. Dont see the issue with that

bubblypop wrote: »

That's explained in their tour! Something to do with teelings actually being an old distillery & doing it somewhere else, only recently back in the liberties

Yes but that would surely have been the father of the guys running teelings now. Was that not distilled by Cooley if it was over 20 years ago?

This is the thing about distilleries and breweries that can be a bit strange. It's the same with this Sullivans beer in kilkenny that says they are one of kilkenny oldest breweries, that brewery closed in the early 1900s. Suddenly it reopens 100 years later under that name and claims to be one of the oldest. All very odd in my opinion

L1011 wrote: »

All the different whiskeys at Jameson were made by Irish Distillers/Pernod Ricard; although not on that site.

Yes but don't they give an American whiskey (JD), a Scotch (Johnny Walker Red) and a Jameson, thus proving conclusively that Irish is the best in the world and Jameson is the best Irish??;)

Slashermcguirk wrote: »

I dont think Johnny Walker (even their more pricey variants) could be further from the best scotch. Never liked their whiskey. I do like a JD but makers mark is top notch for me

They’re hardly going to put up the best of US and scotch against their product if their main goal is to make theirs look good. All three are comparable price wise and popularity wise that they make sense as a taste test.

Remember the Jameson tour is playing up on the diddley-eye punters. Seasoned whisk[e]y drinkers will come away feeling meh (at best).

BeerNut wrote: »

That's just lies for marketing purposes. Everyone's at it. JW Sweetman has "Est. 1756" on its logo but goes no further back, in any form, than 1998. For that matter, Guinness hasn't been brewed since 1759 nor Smithwick's since 1710. It seems to have been sometime in the 1930s that companies decided having an old foundation date was useful for marketing and rushed to invent one for their businesses.

In fairness Guinness and smithwicks have continuously been brewing beer since those original dates of 1759 and 1710. Of course there were different beers from stouts to ales and lagers. Most beer being consumed in ireland in the 1700s was ale and Arthur guinness brewed ales and porter to start with. I have more of an issue with companies saying how long they have been brewing etc when there may be a gap of 100 years missing. Some of these beers might not even be brewed at said location and is brewed somewhere 100 miles away. All rather misleading

BeerNut wrote: »

No they haven't. That's my point.

Eh yes they have been brewing beer since those dates. Maybe not their beer as we know then today but they have brewed beer since those dates

BeerNut wrote: »

You wanna do this? Let's do this.

1759 comes from the Guinness lease on James's Gate. You only need to read a teeny bit more of the document to see the day in 1759 was 31st December. We know very little of what Guinness did in the 1700s but one unassailable fact is that they were not, could not, have been brewing any beer in 1759, having taken possession of a derelict brewery on New Year's Eve. 1796 was used as a foundation date because that's the date on the first record of brewing. But there are references that mention Guinness was already up and running by then, we just don't know from when. Maybe it took six months to establish the brewery and there was Guinness beer in 1760; maybe it took 10 years and Guinness was first on the go in the 1770s. There's just no record. We know just one thing from the period: no Guinness beer was brewed in 1759.

You can read about the ins and outs of brewing in Kilkenny in this succinct summary. It appears from it that 1827 is the most likely foundation date for Smithwick's. Before that, St. Francis's Abbey was a distillery.

Where are you getting your information from?

First off Arthur guinness was making beer before he even went to st. James' gate in 1759 over towards leixlip around mid 1750s, he was from celbridge. He started selling porter in the late 1770s but he was even exporting small quantities of ale before that (ale was the main drink sold in ireland at that time.

Foreign extra stout as we know it and arguably guinness finest beer dates back to 1801, I have seen the recipe in the guinness archive. This is the biggest selling guinness variant in the world today though is mainly sold in Africa, Caribbean and south east Asia.

There is no way of knowing exactly when guinness first brewed a drop at st James's gate but all we know is the lease as you said was signed on 31st December 1759. However we know arthur was already brewing in leixlip before that date.

As for smithwicks the franciscan monks were making beer on the site in kilkenny from around 1230. John smithwick started up in 1710 but due to penal laws he was not allowed own his own business and hence why he went into business with Richard cole who signed the lease with the Duke of ormond(cole signed the lease on the land slightly earlier until John smithwick arrived). It wasnt until John's grandson Edmund smithwick got involved that the smithwick name went over the gates etc. However John smithwick was brewing beer from 1710.

The guinness archive is incredible for anybody who has not been there.