High spirits in Dublin

Today’s post is about whiskey. If you’re teetotal, walk on by.

I’d booked a tour at the Pearse Lyons Distillery in The Liberties essentially on the recommendation of the head concierge at my hotel. The barman here seconded it, and both of them are well known to the PLD folks.

I believe it was a good choice. As it turns out I had a private tour, as no one else seems to have booked for that time slot, so I had Bernard, my guide, and James, the tasting master, to myself.

And it was a good choice because of the history of the enterprise. Pearse Lyons was an Irish biochemist and entrepreneur who built a multi-billion-dollar business in fermentation science and animal nutrition, based in Lexington, Ky. Part of his empire was brewing beer and distilling whiskeys, and he decided to bring his experience to bear on Irish whiskey. He bought a deconsecrated church across from the Guinness brewery and, with his wife, set out to build a distilling business.

The Liberties has a history of making booze; it contains the Golden Triangle of distilleries—more than 40 in a one-mile radius at one time (including the big guns, Powers and Jameson). Lyons (who died last year) viewed PLD as more than a business operation; it’s an investment in Dublin and The Liberties. Bernard told me that the St. James church cost €700K about five years ago, and there’s been several million spent on renovating the dilapidated structure and building out the whiskey business. While Lyons’ first enterprise, Alltech, made a profit in months, his distillery here may not for a long time, but its mission was to revive local history, and not to drive revenues.

Okay, that got my attention.

Not a small portion of that multi-million euro investment is archaeological work in the graveyard, uncovering centuries of burials:

The original church was part of an abbey complex constructed by Henry II as part of his penance for the murder of Thomas à Becket, in 1177. It was a point of origin for pilgrims headed to Santiago de Compostela, and the distillery honors that in some of the stained glass windows they put in. If you have a pilgrim’s passport to Santiago, you can still get a stamp there.

(There’s another St. James church down the road—the PLD one was converted to Church of Ireland in the time of Henry VIII, when its associated abbey was dissolved. That church seems to have taken over the pilgrimage business:)

All that history was before we even walked into the distillery. The instant we walked into the building, I was hit by the odor of the mash fermenting. As it happens, in this vat:

The two pot stills were brought over from Kentucky; the larger one (initial pass) on the left is Mighty Molly, the smaller one (finishing) is Little Lizzie.

Evidently it’s the custom to give stills women’s names. I don’t make this stuff up, I just report it.

Two thousand liters of mash from that vat go into Molly; eventually 190 liters emerge from Lizzie. They go into bourbon barrels (and some on to sherry barrels) from the Lexington distillery (since you can only use a bourbon barrel once for making bourbon but you can re-use them several times for making Irish whiskey), and age.

At that point, Bernard handed me off to James, and I sampled five whiskeys (plus a bit of in-process stuff that the distiller brought over). I liked one of them very much, and another couple okay. Two were not “my profile”, as my whiskey mentor would say.

Turns out they also make gin, and I tried their rhubarb gin, which was surprisingly good. (I’m not a gin drinker.)

Sadly, it didn’t occur to me to take pictures, so you just have to imagine.

However, I really was only partly there for the tasting, as it happens. I mean—trying a new whiskey is attractive, but the history really took over the tour for me and the tasting was just a perk. The most impressive thing about this was that every single PLD employee I spoke with, from the pensioner class to the 20-somethings, was absolutely, joyfully passionate about what they and the company are doing. I don’t know when I’ve come across that.

So I’m going to leave you with shots of the chandeliers, which—in keeping with the history of pilgrims—have the Templars cross on their sides (visible in the third photo), who protected those traveling to holy places.