Whiskey: A local flavour but a global taste

THE only people under 50 who drink whiskey are prats.

So sayeth a gourmand friend of mine. When I named another friend who drinks whiskey and isn’t a prat at all, he said “Yes, but he’s an alcoholic, so that’s different”. And so it is with whiskey — you’re either a self-important bombast, or a pickled old soak. Since my recent and enthusiastic conversion to whiskey, I like to think I’m a mix of the two.

I grew up on the hills overlooking Midleton Distillery in a house with whiskey barrels used as flower pots on the front steps. I swam and fished in the river they make Jameson from, went to secondary school over the wall from the plant, and now live about a half mile from it. Jameson has always been in the background to my life.