County Cork, Ireland

The pool deck is a bit empty at 5:30AM.

30 minutes of exercise for a cup of coffee.

 I (Bill) woke dark and early, and couldn’t get back to sleep.  So, I got up and dressed as quietly as I could and snuck out about 5:30AM to go do some exercise.  I went to the weight room and found it opened at 7.  So, I went up the 12^th deck and found it was closed due to the weather (or more likely being early).  So, I took a lap around the pool deck (11), and then took the stairs down to 4, up to 12, and back around the deck.  I repeated until 6AM, at which point I judged I had earned my coffee. 

Ireland!!

I snuck back into the room, and Theresa was still sleeping, so managed to go through the curtains, and sit on the sofa until she woke up.  When she did get up, we went to breakfast in the restaurant, then saw a presentation on Earthquakes and Tsunamis. 

Cobh (a coastal town near the port)

We got into port about 11ish, and the first tours were meeting about 12:40.  So, we waited until about 12:20 to head to the buffet for lunch, to let the people clear out a bit.  Our tour left at 1:40.  We were to get a tour of Cork, and then on to a distillery.

A church.  Whoda thunk??

She's not drunk (yet).  The sun was in her eyes (she SAYS).

The Midleton Distillery had been operating there since the 1790s, but the company reformed and started in 1825 (celebrating their bicentennial).  In the 1950s, when many of the individual Irish distillers were going out of business, a few got together and decided to pool their resources and needs and use one distillery far from the expensive center of Dublin.  Jamesons was one of them.  The distillation process for Irish whiskey uses a “pot still” rather than a column still.  The internet can describe the details so I’ll just say the columns are cheaper, but not “authentic” so the Irish resisted the change.

How many can I have???

One of the buildings.

There were barrels in all sorts of "artsy" poses.

A 22 foot diameter iron water wheel from 1850s.

Look how they park!!  These are MY people!!

I don't think this was real wort.

But each maker still had their own barrels, and own mixing/blending, and own taste profiles.  So, they are unique products, even if they use the same starting distillation.

The tour included a lot of very old buildings, some of which were used up until 1975, when they built a very new facility.  We walked through them while our guide described the process (which, by now, we could have done ourselves!).  I managed to get some great pictures of some old machinery which I am sure will entertain almost no one.

99 Barrels of whiskey on the ground.  99 barrels of whiskey...

Still pots used until about 1975 or so.

Hold still!!

They had a "lab" with small stills for experimentation.

Honestly, not a bad lab!

We did have a tasting, but only 5 minutes before we were to be on the bus.

Back on the ship, we had a late dinner, and Theresa went to the show (some singing) and Bill stopped by the puzzle and within 3 minutes ran into a couple from Germany, who started a conversation.  The conversation took so many turns, from Peter the Great of Russia building St Petersburg to the US President to the start of WWII.  I was seeking a way out as I was only supposed to spend a few minutes on the puzzle and I was 30+ minutes into this intense debate about US Foreign policy.  I got back to the room (to work on the blog) about 2-3 minutes before Theresa came in from the show!