May 16—Jameson's Distillery, and Then We Head North

Midleton turned out to be the home of the distillery where Jameson Irish whisky is made, so we couldn't pass it up. Well, we could have, but we didn't...

(Click on the thumbnails for a larger view, and then on the enlarged image to return.)

	Lots of whisky-loving tourists apparently make a pilgrimage to this place, and there's a large visitor center from where guided tours start. We signed up for one, despite being warned by our B&B host not to volunteer for anything.
	Dave and Doug chat while waiting for the 10:30 tour to start, ignoring the gentleman holding up the menu blackboard. The tour (about thirty of us) was led by a rather stiff, regimented, scripted young woman who obviously hadn't a snort yet herself. We got a tour of the interesting, quaint, old, original distillery, and not the new whisky factory on an adjacent lot.
	Near the main old brewing copper, the guide asked for a volunteer to ring a bell hanging from the ceiling. Mike the Gregarious stepped forth. "Pull it as hard as you can," she says. Whereupon Mike got the bell really rocking, thumping it against the rafters. That'll teach her. (Sorry for the fuzzy photo—it's the best we have.) Still, volunteering didn't seem to be too bad so far...
	At the end of the tour, everyone got a glass of Jameson, but three volunteers got to sit down for a tasting of six whiskies! So that's what our B&B host meant! The guide did the choosing, though, but as luck would have it both Doug and Mike got "volunteered"! Their "job" was to compare various Irish, Scotch, Canadian, and American whiskies and decide that Irish was best. Here, they're given their instructions by the guide...
	...Doug and the 80-year-old gal take careful, considered sips...
	...the three tasters display the diplomas that they're awarded for their efforts...
	...and they finally all toast each other to celebrate their good cheer. Despite the fact that Doug and Mike staggered out and slept a lot in the car the rest of the day, the old gal drank them both under the table.
	Later that afternoon...................
	Back on his feet. To some extent, anyway...
	We headed north, putting on a lot of miles (well, at least for us), ending up in the town of Scarriff, on the shores of Lough Derg—a large, long, skinny, scenic lake. In the late afternoon, we stopped for a pint at ... at ... okay, you pronounce it.
	While we were there, this guy came over, asked if it were a private party, we said hell no, and invited him to join us. He was a Kiwi living in Ireland to make the big bucks as a carpenter in the building boom. He'd heard our accents, and said that he never got a chance to talk with Americans. A very interesting character—well, a nut case, if truth be known. Told us that we shouldn't stay at a B&B but rather at a trailer park owned by his friend Joe, an 85-year-old ex-Nazi. We opted for the B&B.