A Drop of the Irish Trivia Quiz

Answer: Scottish

John Jameson was a lawyer from Alloa in Scotland who arrived in Dublin in the 1770s, and in 1780 bought the Bow Street distillery in Dublin from Scottish distiller Robert Stein. Nowadays, Jameson whiskeys are distilled in the Midleton distillery in Cork, but the Bow Street distillery remains an important landmark in the centre of Dublin as a whiskey museum and visitor centre.

In 2010, Jameson was the third highest retailing whiskey in the world by volume. An Irish pub in Minneapolis called 'The Local' achieved the accolade in 2010 of selling more Jameson than any other pub in the world, for the fourth consecutive year!

Answer: Whiskey made with both malted and unmalted barley

Although the majority of modern whiskey distilling in Ireland produces single malts, blended malts and grain whiskeys (as in Scotland and elsewhere), the most traditional - and unique - form of Irish whiskey is made from mixing malted and unmalted barley together before distilling them in a pot still.

The unmalted barley, not used in whiskey making elsewhere, gives Irish whiskey a spiciness which is specific to it. A lot of Irish whiskey comprises a blend of pure pot still with other whiskeys (Jameson is one example of this blending); however two phenomenal Irish whiskeys - Redbreast and Green Spot - consist wholly of pure pot still, and you should sell your granny, if needs be, to get hold of them!

Answer: 4

The decline of the Irish whiskey industry can be traced to a number of key factors in the early 20th century beginning with the Temperance movement in Ireland, the trade war between the emergent Irish Free State and Britain after Irish independence in the 1920s, cheaper and inferior Scottish whiskey made using the mass-produced Coffey still method, and American prohibition in 1920 which destroyed the huge export market for Irish whiskey that had existed before. By 1966, only the Midleton distillery in Cork and Old Bushmills in the North of Ireland survived (owned in 2010 by the Pernod-Ricard and Diageo conglomerates respectively).

In the past 20 years there has been a minor revival, with the opening of the Irish-owned Cooley distillery in 1987 and the re-opening of Kilbeggan in 2007. By comparison, there were about 100 working distilleries in Scotland in 2010.

Answer: Continuous column still

The first column still was in fact invented by Robert Stein in 1826, the same Scottish distiller who in 1780 had sold the Bow Street distillery in Dublin to John Jameson. It was further developed and patented five years later by a Dublin-based former Excise Inspector, Aeneas Coffey.

The continuous operation of the column still, compared with the time-consuming 'batch' production of the traditional pot still, enables far greater volumes of (inferior) grain spirit to be cheaply produced, and then blended with malt whisky for taste.

The Scottish whisky industry, unlike that in Ireland, wholeheartedly embraced the new Coffey still, and - when Prohibition in America ended in 1933 - was able to seize the lucrative export market which had previously been dominated by Irish whiskey.

Answer: Paddy

The whiskey was originally known as 'Cork Distillery Company's Old Irish Whiskey', but Paddy Flaherty's sales technique was to energetically tour Cork's pubs buying customers a round of the whiskey. Soon, as it became better known, pub landlords were sending in orders for 'Paddy Flaherty's whiskey'. In 1912 the distillery formally renamed it 'Paddy Old Irish Whiskey' in tribute to him. Alongside Jameson, Powers and Bushmills whiskeys, Paddy remains one of the most popular brands in Ireland to this day - although personally I would drink any one of the others in preference to it.

Answer: Green Spot

In the old days, many local wine merchants would buy whiskey by the cask from a local distiller and sell it under their own name, but gradually the practice died out. Only Green Spot remains in Ireland today as a local retailer brand, originally produced for wine merchant Mitchell & Son by Jameson's Bow Street distillery in Dublin since at least the early 1920s, and now by the Midleton Distillery in Cork. Only 6,000 bottles of this 8-year-old whiskey are produced annually, most of it sold directly through Mitchell & Son's shop in Kildare Street, Dublin (or online!).

A fabulous honeyed whiskey, this is definitely one (if you can get it!) for the connoisseur. Black Bush and Powers are high-volume, mainstream Irish whiskeys (both excellent) and The Macallan is a leading Scottish malt whiskey. Jim Murray is a whiskey consultant who produces an annual 'Whisky Bible', tasting and rating nearly 4,000 whiskeys.

Answer: Old Bushmills Distillery

King James I issued a royal warrant for the distilling of whiskey in the Bushmills area in 1608 - the first license of its kind anywhere - although the Bushmills Distillery didn't register as a company until 1784. This gap in time allows the Kilbeggan Distillery in County Westmeath to claim that it, and not Old Bushmills, is actually the oldest in the world. Kilbeggan began licensed distilling on its current site in 1757 but closed exactly two hundred years later.

Then, in 2007, it reopened again as Ireland's fourth distillery. Slowly sip a glass of Kilbeggan, and then one of Bushmills, while you muse on their respective claims to be the oldest! Can't make up your mind? Sip another!

Answer: Ben Nevis

Ben Nevis is a mountain in the Scottish Highlands, so the whisky that takes its name is assuredly Scottish! The other three are blended Irish whiskies, though perhaps the most interesting thing about them is their names. The Wild Geese refers to the Catholic Jacobite army that left Ireland in 1691 after its defeat by the forces of William of Orange. Michael Collins was a leader in the Irish war of independence against Britain in 1919-1921 (and was killed during the subsequent civil war in 1922). Feckin Irish Whiskey is ... well, a bit rude!

Answer: Powers

John Power & Sons established the John's Lane Distillery in Dublin's Liberties area in 1791. In 1966 it combined with the other two great distillers in the South of Ireland - Jameson and Cork Distillers Group (makers of Paddy whiskey) - to form the Irish Distillers Group. All three companies abandoned distilling on their own sites to build the new Midleton Distillery in Cork which now produces those three brands and many more. Powers whiskey is far more rugged and 'chewy' than Jameson or Paddy and outsells both of them - as well as Bushmills whiskey - in Ireland itself, with around 6 million measures sold each year. Baileys Irish Cream, of course, is a liqueur rather than a whiskey.

Answer: USA

The word whiskey itself is an Anglicisation of the Irish Gaelic term 'uisce beatha' (water of life), and rumour has it that the Irish introduced the 'e' into the spelling to distinguish their product from its poorer-quality Scottish counterpart. Most American whiskeys follow this convention, with exceptions however that include Maker's Mark bourbon whisky and George Dickel Tennessee whisky. Whiskey production elsewhere in the world generally follows the Scottish spelling convention, although in New Zealand the spelling is interchangeable, or - as we might say in the North of Ireland - it 'kicks with both feet'!