Dublin to Belfast Northern Ireland

Thur 21st Oct

My train from Dublin to Belfast was at 1pm so I had the morning to kill.
Decided to go to the Jameson distillery to see the process of making whiskey.
John Jameson started making whisky at the Dublin site in 1780. The main distillery is now located in Cork and the whisky is now trucked to Dublin in unmarked trucks and bottled at this site.

So what makes Jameson's whiskey special is that it is triple distilled. So firstly the barley is soaked in water and allowed to half germinate. Then heated with anthracite which is smokeless. Apparently this is why Jamesons has a different taste and is less smoky. Then they mix and mash barley, malt and then boil the mix in hot water. They add yeast and it ferments. The mixture is distilled - so it is heated and since alcohol has a low boiling point, it becomes gas faster and moves up the glass funnel and then is cooled. Triple distilled means it is repeated three times making the end product a lot smoother as it has removed impurities.
The alcohol is concentrated after distillation and is around 70-80%... so they dilute it with spring water and then barrel it. The flavours come from the fact that they use old barrels to store the whiskey in. The barrels are imported mostly from the US and have been used before. The previous contents and the type of oak give the whiskey its flavour as it is matured for at least 5 years.

Bought the special 12 year old distillery reserve whiskey which is only available in Dublin or Cork.


After the distillery i decided to take a walk around and look at the bridges. As previously mentioned, quite a few of them are named after prominent Irish writers.

James Joyce bridge over the River Liffey

Next stop was the National Museum in Dublin. I could actually have spent a whole day there... but I was starting to get a little cultured out. I didnt have much time so in the hour left I just visited the irish crosses exhibition.
The Celtic cross features a cross with a circle around the intersection. Legend says that this cross was created by St. Patrick. He was trying to convert pagan Ireland to Christianity so he incorporated the circle into the cross as they previously worshipped the sun.

 

Boarded my train for the 2hr trip to Belfast....

Click here to view photo album.