We looked at the weather forecast this weekend and saw rain, and more rain. So we decided it was a good time to go out to Midleton and check out the Jameson experience. It turns out that many types of Irish whiskey are made in Midleton at the new facility that opened in 1975. Jameson, Redbreast, Midleton, Paddy’s, Powers are among them. Adjacent to the new distillery is the old distillery which housed the Cork Distillery Company, which merged with Jameson in 1966 to form the Irish Distillers Group. The old distillery is now the Jameson Experience and is a collection of old buildings where they have a tour which talks about the process of making whiskey.
In and around the buildings they have a lot of the old equipment on display and do a fairly thorough job of explaining the process of whiskey making.
In this part they showed us barrels at different stages in the process which pointed out how the color changes over time and how much they lose to evaporation during the process.
At the end of the tour Emily and I were selected to be official whiskey tasters. They had us compare a scotch, burbon, and Jameson whiskeys. Emily and I both liked the Jameson the best. We even got a personalized certificate showing our status as whiskey tasters.
We then had a nice lunch, then went to the Mad Monk before heading back to Cork.
All in all, we liked Midleton and the whiskey experience.