February 25, 2020 – Cork Spring

After the Kindred Spirits memorial, and probably before it in most minds, Midleton is best known as the home of the Jameson whiskey distillery. In actuality, the distillery is home to a number of brands belonging to Irish Distillers, a joint venture between the Jameson, Powers, and Cork distillers formed in the mid 1960s, at a time when the whiskey industry worldwide was at a nadir. The original distillery was constructed in the 1700s as a wool mill, and eventually became a distillery around 1825. It was a production distillery through 1975, when the new distillery was constructed adjacent. The old buildings were converted to a visitor center in the early 90s.

I’ve toured the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky a few times. I’ve also been a home brewer for about 30 years, so i have a bit of background in how corn or barley are turned into alcohol, and how alcohol is turned into whiskey. Even so, the unique history of the Midleton Distillery, and the enthusiasm of Connor, our tour guide, made this a very enjoyable 90 minutes.

*Exterior of the old distillery, with copper pot still.*

The tour starts with a short film explaining some of the history of whiskey making in Ireland, particularly of the Jameson brand, before you get into the details. Jameson is the most widely distributed of the brands produced here, especially in the US, but i’ve been able to purchase the Redbreast 12 year, and a John Powers whiskey back home in NC.

In the past, the buildings we toured were in use as grain warehouses, malting houses, and milleries in addition to distilling stations.

*Tour guide Connor holds up a tile from the old maltings. The small indentations allow the soaked grain to begin to sprout; larger holes on the bottom of the tile allow air to circulate.*

*After germinating, the grain has to be kiln dried. The kiln floors can get hot, so this was the 19th century solution to keeping your feet from burning.*

The main thing I’ve learned that differentiates Irish whiskey from any other style, is that it is distilled from a mixture of malted and unmalted, that is, germinated and ungerminated, barley. This came about mostly as a result of the British Crown’s taxation policies. Malted barley was taxed at a much higher rate than unmalted barley. In order to keep at least some profits in house, Irish distillers learned how to balance the two types in their production processes. After the sprouted grain was kiln dried, it was then milled into grist onsite.

As in beer making, the crushed grain is mashed to encourage the conversion of starch into sugars. The resulting wort is then cooled for a bit, before yeast is introduced to turn that sugar into alcohol. In this case, it was transferred to 45,000 gallon wooden tanks.

*No, seriously, 45,000 gallon wooden tanks, hanging out 10 feet above your head. At a pound a pint, that’s 180 tons of liquid.*

Distilling is the process of separating the alcohol from the fermented wort. There’s a couple of ways of doing that, but they all take advantage of the fact that alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water. You heat the liquid to somewhere around 180° F, collect the alcohol laden vapor in a tube, then chill it and catch the condensate in a separate tank. Which impurities you leave in, and which you take out, is part of the distiller’s art. Traditionally, Irish whiskey was all made in a copper single pot still, like the one in the first picture above. Now, most are made using a combination of pot stills and column stills. The latter is common in bourbon making. Irish whiskeys made the traditional way are labeled as single pot still.

*This is apparently the largest pot still in the world. It was so big, and the room so small, that even with my widest angle I couldn’t get all of it in the frame. So here’s a closeup.*

*These three are much smaller, and are in use in the testing rooms, where new recipes are concocted and tried out. I suspect they are much newer than the big boy.*

The second part of the distiller’s art is the aging. American bourbons are aged for a minimum of two years in charred oak barrels, which can only be used once. The warehouses are a couple of stories high, and the barrels are rotated from the top to the bottom at least once, because the temperature differences, both throughout the year, and across the building, are great enough that a barrel allowed to age in the warmer top story in the summer will impart a different flavor to its whiskey than one on the floor in the winter.

Temperatures in Ireland are not so variable, and the warehouses are generally a single story. So the barrels are stacked three high, and not rotated during the aging process. Different types of barrels are used, including former bourbon and sherry barrels, as well as some virgin oak barrels. Much Irish whiskey is actually matured in a sequence of barrels, which can be re-used up to 3 times before being discarded. Most of the discards end up in Cuba, where they are used to age rum.

Master Distiller Barry Crockett grew up on the site. Some of the last whiskey produced by his father was made available for purchase recently, at $40,000/bottle. You had to act fast, though. All 48 bottles sold out in a couple of days. Maybe start saving for the 2021 release.

Yesterday we took the train into Midleton. It’s about a half hour ride, most of the way sharing the same track as the train to Cobh, splitting off for the final two stops.

Midleton is a bit smaller than Cobh, with much less waterfront and no harbor to speak of. There are two main points of interest, the distillery and the Kindred Spirits memorial. I’ll make a separate post about the distillery, but here’s some thoughts and images about the memorial and the town.

Directly adjacent to the train station is Midleton’s hurling pitch. Unfortunately for us, the next match is a few months down the road.

This sculpture, near where the railway road lets you off into town, is entitled Flock of Geese, or some such. Seems to me that “Halp!” would be more appropriate.

Midleton is, essentially, a single main street kind of town. It’s about 7 or 8 blocks long, with enough restaurants, bars, bake shops, etc., for a town thrice its size, and a decent number of shoe stores, clothing stores, & real estate offices as well. The alleys and side lanes hold a few surprises, too.

Adjacent to the distillery is a pollinator garden. It’s still winter (even if the pagan calendar says it’s early spring), so not much is blooming. Roughly double the normal amount of rain has fallen across the country this February, so every small creek is racing.

The Kindred Spirits memorial is in a small park, roughly a kilometer south of the town center. Enough has been said about the memorial elsewhere that i don’t need to add anything. It was a truly humbling experience. I hope some of my photos can convey that feeling.