Day two arose in Cork with sore heads and sleepy eyes for all of the 50 odd fellow journalists on the Jameson Irish Whisky trip. Sunday’s full day of imbibing whiskey at the Old Midleton Distillery and cocktails over the course of what became a very late night was catching up with us all and Monday’s breakfast was a sedate affair.
The Castlemartyr Resort sorted us out in true 5 star style with a full Irish breakfast and a take away bag for our 3 hour coach transfer to Dublin bursting with bacon butties, water and strong, strong coffee. Exactly what the doctor ordered. It was sad to say goodbye to this place and I wished I could have taken even a fraction of its tranquillity back to London with me. There was little time for melancholy though – we were on our way to Dublin for a full day and evening of St Patrick’s Day celebrations!
The Castlemartyr Resort sorted us out in true 5 star style with a full Irish breakfast and a take away bag for our 3 hour coach transfer to Dublin bursting with bacon butties, water and strong, strong coffee. Exactly what the doctor ordered. It was sad to say goodbye to this place and I wished I could have taken even a fraction of its tranquillity back to London with me. There was little time for melancholy though – we were on our way to Dublin for a full day and evening of St Patrick’s Day celebrations!
After a quick 40 winks on the coach, we rolled into Dublin and excitement was high. We checked into the trendy Fitzwilliam Hotel right in the heart of Dublin. This is a contemporary and chic hotel with rooms decked out with bright, geometric rugs, bold furnishings and quirky lighting. They also had the best bathroom guest amenities I’ve ever seen – including a zesty, fragrant salt scrub which definitely made it into my suitcase – and had even put retro sweets in my room (think Freddy Frog retro!) as a treat.
We headed out into Dublin from the Fitzwilliam for a tour of the city hosted by Le Cool. How to explain what Le Cool is? Google describes them as an ‘independent publishing company’, their ‘about me’ as a magazine and their website as a ‘what’s on’ platform, operating out of London, Dublin and Barcelona. For us they were a tour guide giving us a look inside the ‘real Dublin’ with the standard tourist spots notably absent from the itinerary. We began with a live acoustic guitar set by Jape frontman, Richard Egan, at the Smock Theatre, an old converted church.
We moved on to Temple Bar, wandering through its winding streets and occasionally stopping to check out bits of street art along the way. This course took us into a side alley and up into the apartment of chefs Kevin and Robin for some modern Irish canapés! These two cooks hold a popular supper club, Gruel Guerilla, in their apartment where they dish up seasonal Irish food to guests on a regular basis. Supper clubs have become a popular trend in London recently- with even Michelin starred chefs abandoning professional premises to launch their own – and it’s great to see it here in Dublin too. After noshing down bacon on crispy cabbage amongst other tasty morsels and being regaled by a food historian with some tales of Irish food history, we moved on to tour some of the area’s local craft and fashion shops.
Our final stop brought us to a butchery…or so we thought. We were led through the butchery’s fridge and down some stairs to where a secret Jameson bar was revealed! Jameson had this speakeasy developed with the aim of using it to train their bar tenders and entertain brand friends. There famous Irish mixologist Oisin Davis treated us to a class on the history of Irish Whiskey and Jameson cocktails. Oisin revealed that in the 19th century Jameson Irish Whiskey was the most consumed in the world, with over 1,000,000 gallons produced each year, in comparison to Glenlivet at 200,000. Next, a cocktail master class culminating in the grand ‘Irish Cocktail’ invented by cocktail guru Harry Johnson in 1869; a towering pyramid of glasses filled from the top with a heady blend of Jameson whiskey and absinthe.
With a slight wobble we headed back through the St Paddy’s Day crowds to the hotel to freshen up for the evening ahead. This was not set to be a quiet one. Jameson take St Patrick’s Day very seriously. Each year they commission a special limited edition bottle to celebrate it with this year’s dedicated to Dublin and designed by award winning illustrator Steve Simpson. Not only this but they throw a huge live music concert to bring in the day with thousands of attendees and a number of bands. That’s some dedication to the spirit of these festivities!
We began the evening with dinner at Sophie’s restaurant and bar. The restaurant is on the top floor of a boutique hotel and offers stunning 360 degree views of the city. The menu offers fine Italian with a good selection of fresh pasta and meat dishes. Everything I tried was well executed and tasty. This dinner proved to be a brief moment of calm in an otherwise wild evening and as the final espressos were shot and cocktails swallowed, we headed out to the evening’s main event: Jameson St Patrick’s Day Live.
From all the hype, I had expected a good party. What Jameson put on however was beyond all expectations. The venue was gigantic and packed out with thousands of people, with multiple bars, several popular bands and a spectacular, true rock concert light show! All the bands were Irish and my iPod playlist has already been updated with some of the great new artists I heard that night.
After a lot of jigging and singing along (loudly and poorly) to the bands, we moved on to The Liquor Rooms nightclub for the Jameson after party because…well apparently one party isn’t enough for Jameson! So much for getting an early night before our morning flights back to London. I’ll not commit to print the full details of this evening or the precise number of Jameson’s with ginger I may or may not have consumed that night, but let’s just say that the beautiful Fitzwilliam’s hotel bed definitely did not get its money’s worth.
It was with sore head, fatigue and an immense new appreciation for Jameson and its Irish whiskey that I left Dublin. I felt I’d been given a real view into the brand: day 1 had been all about tradition and understanding the Jameson history, with day 2 moving to the present and how Jameson interacts with the modern Ireland it operates in. I can approach its golden, amber measures with confidence and more than a touch of nostalgia, remembering back to its shady warehouses, towering with stacks of barrels and fragrant with aging, tremendously Irish whiskey.
