Irish shun beer, whiskey in favour of … wine Amateur drinkers will be cramming into Irish pubs the world over tonight to slurp Guinness and neck whiskey (with an e) in honour of St Patrick. But the citizens of the Emerald Isle will be as likely to toast their patron saint with a full-bodied Shiraz or a well-oaked Chardonnay, shocking research revealed this week. An …
Possibly something to do with it being easier in Ireland to get a licence to sell wine than to sell other alcohol; see Wine Retailer's On Licence (which also applies to "off" sales, as the web page points out, or as you can find by asking any Irish village shopkeeper).
What kind of person wakes up in a morning and thinks: "Right, today I'm going to join an organisation who's goal it is to reduce what other people drink." ?
Seriously? I mean, I can understand the case for it - it's allegedly harmful if you have wine on your cornflakes, but I can't imagine what kind of person would actively campaign against it voluntarily.
If you want something interesting to soak up wine; some years ago I took a camper to the continent via P&O ferries, they were giving a 6 pack of half bottles of wine away to each adult so we had 24 halves of cheap wine. On a break for lunch I opend a bottle and found veering towards chip dressing then while eating a few ginger biscuits for a roadside dessert I inadvertantly dunke a ginger biccy into the wine, it really improved the wine and didn't hurt the biccies either!
Living in Spain I get to 'test' a lot good wines cheaply, I can thoroughly recommend Cune a Rioca from the Valencia region, I have yet to have a poor bottle. The one I have open at the moment is a Crianza.
hmm, aye, I don't really get on with Japanese whisky either, I've sampled a few and they've all been 'nice' but I've never sampled one thats made me get my wallet out there and then and buy the bottle, Kavalan from Taiwan on the other hand is bloody awesome, if you just wanna get wrecked though, then yeah, go for Gao Liang Jiu, makes Tequila seem a bit wussy....
Probably An Teagasc and the NDC promote Cheese in Ireland.
There is a MASSIVE variety of Irish cheeses, today, a far cry from 30 years ago when there was Galtee processed cheese, Calvita milder processed cheese and rather suspiciously rubbery "Chedder" style cheese.
There is Cow, Goat and Sheep cheeses, in Danish, English, Swiss, French and Greek styles as well as local styles.
... award goes to Guinness, for "St Patrick's Day", and the ever-growing global chain of "Irish pubs".
Guinness sells more of that clammy tar they have the nerve to pass off as "beer" in Nigeria than they do in Ireland, where (I presume, and this story seems to bear out) the natives have better taste.
I have an upcomming visit to the Emerald Isle (My niece now lives in Galway). I will try to do my bit to raise the averages...
It is Friday here in Oz. The St. Patrick's Day madness is over for another year. Now to start some serious research into good Irish Whiskeys.
Beer because there is no whiskey icon...
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