Jamie and Jessica and I spent Saturday hitting all the highlights of Galway from the fresh doughnuts and the Saturday morning market to the Galway Museum and adorable shops on Shop Street. Then the three of us headed to Dublin Sunday morning.
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| Traveling with sisters is a special sort of adventure |
We visited the Guinness and Jameson Factories. First off was the Guinness Storehouse which was great. A lot of it was about the process making Guinness which was interesting. The exhibits were quite well laid out which impressed me more due to my public history classes (Did you know people tend to lay out/ walk through exhibits differently depending on which side they drive on?) My favorite fact was that Aurthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease when he began his brewery. Impressively cocky. I also love that Guinness uses two-thirds of all the Barley grown in Ireland and how much of the world's Guinness is drunk by the tiny island of Ireland.
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| We all successfully poured our own pints of Guinness |
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| And then we enjoyed said pints of Guinness |
It also entertained me that they were having people join in on their St Patty's Day Party in order to try and set a world record. Since it is a Guinness Book of World Records shouldn't they just be able to insert themselves whenever they want? Wouldn't that be one of the perks of being the people who create the book?
We then headed to the Jameson Distillery. Since their tours are guided we had time to kill so we browsed the gift shop a bit then got ourselves Irish coffee/hot whiskey. Super tasty.
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A year old, three year, five, ten and eighteen years old whiskey
showing with different levels of evaporation |
The evaporated amount of the barrels of whiskey is referred to as "the angels' portion". The idea of tipsy-little-angels skimming whiskey out of the barrels entertained me.
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Since it was a trade passed from father to son they had lots of nicknames to keep them all straight
I wonder how the last Kavanagh boy there got his nickname, seems like it would be quite well suited to Anthony Weiner |
Our tour was fun and Jamie was even chosen to be one of the taster at the end of the tour. The tasters were given Jameson, Jack Daniels (the world's most popular whiskey), and a scotch to compare. Jamie Lyn fittingly liked the Jameson the most.
The tours were really fun and Jamie even revised her low opinion of Dublin. Dun-dun-dun... [ominous music cue]
To be continued.
