Ringaskiddy is just across the water (the River Lee) from Cobh (pronounced "Cove") where we've been before. Cobh is famous for being the last place from which the Titanic sailed before heading off for that iceberg.
Cork is about a 30-minute drive from its port of Ringaskiddy, where we docked. Our tour this morning consisted of a bit of a scenic drive around Cork first. There are lots of pharmaceutical companies in this area, including Pfizer and Lilly, as well as the big tech companies like Apple and Google.
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| We always see these cars in the Irish crime TV shows we watch on BritBox and Acorn. |
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| And here's the Garda (Police) station. |
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| The River Lee runs through Cork |
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| There are some lovely homes in this area. |
Next we drove up to Middleton to visit the distillery that makes Jameson Irish Whiskey, among others.
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| This is a terrible picture taken from a moving bus. Back in 1847, during the Irish potato famine, the Choctaw tribe in the US heard about the difficulties the Irish were suffering - the starvation and the mistreatment. The Choctaws felt their pain and raised $170, the equivalent of about $6,000 today, and sent it to Ireland for famine relief. The people of Middleton never forgot and put up this monument, named "Kindred Spirits", in 2017. It consists of nine 20-foot stainless steel eagle feathers arranged in a circle, no two feathers alike. If you look closely, you can see some of the monument in the middle of the picture. |
Our main purpose of this tour was the whiskey tasting at Middleton Distillery. It is another beautiful property with a very well-done visitor center and tour.
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| A copper distiller on the grounds |
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| A large and beautiful wall of their products. |
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| We've never heard of these |
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| Or these |
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| Ah, here's some we know. |
There was a very nice gift area. We didn't buy any whiskey, but we bought a tasteful ball cap for Michael.
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| There is a full bar area and outside they sell pastries and snacks also. |
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| I think this was for large party tastings or something. |
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| This building has been converted into a very nice theatre on the ground floor where they show a short movie on the history of the distillery. During Prohibition, many of the local distillers went out of business. Three of them joined forces (Powers, Jameson, and one other I missed) and together they survived. |
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| While the malted barley is being dried in a huge kiln building with multiple levels, the workers have to walk around it stirring and turning it over do it dries evenly. These are the shoes they would wear to protect their feet from the intense heat. |
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| This was the kiln, or drying building. There were five levels of drying floors holding tons of barley. |
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| This building was converted from a mill into the distilling building. The water wheel used to power the whole place. They later installed an electric generator for times when the water level was low. |
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| In one of the barrel rooms they had a nice display of casks of various ages. They were laid on their sides, and the top was of clear glass so you could see the different color gradations as it aged from new to about 17 years old. And the amount of whiskey went down as well due to evaporation. That is what they call the "angel's share" so above the display they had a nice art piece of angel wings made from old casks. Unfortunately, it was so dark in there that the flash washed out the picture. |
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| Another old distiller |
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| We sampled these three. Unfortunately, neither of us cared for any of them. Michael really prefers the peaty Scotch whiskey and I'm not a big fan of whisky unless it is flavored with cinnamon or maple. Needless to say, neither of us mentioned that during the tour. |
After the tour we were given a voucher for a drink. Michael declined, but I had a Jameson 12 and ginger beer with lime. That was tasty.
Back on board we watched some of the action of the busy pier.
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| This ship was unloading when we arrived, and by the time we left it was reloading. You can just see two of the cranes hoisting two containers. |
Both Jan/Tom and Claude had afternoon tours, so it was just Michael and me for Trivia. But we managed to get 13/16 (he added a bonus question), which was first place for 3 points! Woo hoo! Now we have enough for TWO windbreakers, but only because they lowered the number of points needed since it is a shorter cruise.
Jan and Tom got back from their tour just before the all aboard and dinner time so they decided to order room service. We had dinner a deux and observed that the restaurant was packed this evening. They had people waiting for tables when we left.
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