25 June 2025 Jameson Whiskey Tasting and OAT Tour Begins

 25 June 2025               OAT Tour Begins

Today was moving day for us as our Overseas Adventure Travel tour began today and we joined our traveling companions who just arrived from the states.  For the next 2 weeks we will be traveling together around the northern and western coasts of Ireland.   Last night was the warmest night so far and the Temple Bar Inn does not have air conditioned rooms (in Ireland it is quite common to have no air conditioning and much smaller rooms than we are used to in the States.  So neither one of us got much sleep.  Thank goodness our new hotel will have air conditioning.

However, before we left the area around the Temple Bar, we had one more stop to make.  Although we had already visited the Whiskey Museum, you cannot visit Dublin without visiting the Jameson Whiskey Distillery (notice that I have ignored the Guiness Beer Brewery entirely – neither Bill nor I enjoy Guiness – it is much too bitter for Bill and I do not enjoy beer.  But we did have a sample taste of Guiness and it is much better tasting here in Ireland than it is in the states.  I found it to taste more like iced coffee.  And for those that do like Guiness, they also have a tour and tasting at their brewery here in Dublin

Founded in 1780, the Jameson Bow Street Distillery was the original site for the distillation of its famous Jameson Irish Whiskey.  It closed in 1971 when operations were relocated to a new distillery in Midleton in County Cork.  Today it is a visitor’s center that provides tours and whiskey tastings and includes a bar and gift shop.  Our visited included a cocktail made with Jameson Irish Whiskey to get us in the mood (I had a lime ginger drink and Bill had straight Jameson), a guided tour which explained the history and operation of the old distillery, and ended with a comparative tasting of three Jameson whiskeys (Jameson Crested (not sold in the States), Jameson Original, and Jameson Black Barrel).  We like the Black Barrel best.  Our tour guide explained the process of “Gran to Glass” that they use to make the whiskey – from the malting of the barley to the three process of distilling to the maturation in oak barrels.  The barrels are actually used bourbon barrels from Kentucky

In the late 1960s, when sales of Irish whiskey were falling, Jameson, Powers, and Cork Distillers combined forces and created the Irish Distillers Group.  All use the distillery in Midleton to make their whiskey.  Today, Jameson has over 2 million barrels/year of whiskey maturing in its warehouses.  It was a very interesting tour and the whiskeys were very good

 

Our Whiskey Tasting

My Ginger-Lime Drink

Following the tour, we found a taxi to take us back to the Temple Bar Inn to retrieve our luggage and then on to our new hotel – Hyatt Centric The Liberties.  We had lunch there and then met our Trip Leader (TL) Tom Kiely and several of our new traveling companions.

At 6 PM we all gathered (there are 16 on this tour) in the Hyatt’s restaurant for our welcome dinner.