The Old Jameson Distillery

Jamesson is the Irish Wiskey Brand. It goes way back, as you'll see on this attraction. The tour shows you how wiskey is made, guided by a nice irish guide, who keeps promising whiskey at the end. Which you will get, when you're over the age of 18... Some of the group got to do some tasting, to see which wiskey they liked best. So if you like whiskey, sign up! It's all very well cared for, but a bit expensive. The admissions you'll also find on their site. We had to wait about two hours, so count in some time. The tour itself takes 45 min as well.

They don’t manufacture whiskey here anymore (you’d have to go to Midleton for that) but it’s the original site. It’s a guided tour, the guide was quite funny (well, mine was anyway – maybe you can ask for Kristina (from Slovakia)). Three guys and three girls were chosen to do a taste test at the end (not a blind taste test, you know what you’re drinking, er, well, you’re told what you’re drinking anyway, I didn’t see them pour it from a bottle). €9 with a student ID.

Option to buy a bottle which they claim is unavailable anywhere else, plus there was an option to buy the collection of “Midleton Very Rare Irish Whiskey” which is, a bottle of every annual “select” whiskey from the Midleton distillery since its inception in 1984. The total cost for the 23 bottles of whiskey? €50,000!!!

The tour is pretty basic but also pretty swish and you can tell that a lot of effort has been put into making this attraction. I love Jameson whiskey, and the tour tells you all you probably would expect about its making with a guide around a partially reconstructed distillery, and with the aid of a couple of corny videos. OK, I'm not a mega-fan of these tourist museums/tours, but this is as enjoyable as any other, and at the end you get to enjoy a shot of the whiskey with the rest of your entourage, and if you are brave enough to volunteer at the start you get to compare the Jameson with other local and global brands. Notably you also get the chance to purchase an exclusive 12 year old special reserve supposedly unavailable elsewhere.

This was another trip we were able to get in free based on the bus pass. The bus doesn't drop you directly in front of the distillery but you can find your way to it. When you get there the floor in the lobby is made of glass so you can see below to the foundations of the old tanks. The facility is not that large or at least what you get to see is not that much. You start off first by watching a video and afterwards, the tour guide asks for volunteers. If you like whiskey (assuming why you are there) you should try to get picked. If you are you partake in some whiskey tasting at the end of the tour. You will get to compare Jamison's against a bunch of others that are not triple distilled. Our tour guide was very informative and got to learn a lot about the process of distilling whiskey. At the end of the tour for those that were not selected you still get to sample some of Jamison's whiskey so worth going.

Only 9€ for an adult ticket in for this guided tour.  They call it the Old Distillery because whiskey is no longer made her but rather now the production is in Cork.  The tour guide was very knowledgable and I learned a lot about the production of whiskey and the differences between Irish, Scottish, and American whiskeys.  Each step is explained in a museum like mock up of the area that this step took place in and I found it was easier to understand what was going on by standing in the middle of it.  At the end of the tour you get a free glass, and four volunteers get to taste three different Irish whiskeys, a scotch, and an american whisky to see the differences.  Very informative tour, definatly worth the money.

The end of the tour ends in the gift shop of course and there is pleanty to buy here.  They have many whiskeys that are not available in the US as well as clothing and other trinkets.