Guiness and Jameson!

If you visit Dublin, especially the week leading up to Saint Patrick's Day, it's pretty much illegal not to go to the Guiness Storehouse and the Jameson Distillery, so obviously Connor and I didn't want to get arrested so we went on both tours.

Guiness is really cool because it's shaped like a giant pint glass so the tour takes you up the different levels, each of which focus on different stages of the process. The self guided tour starts with the different ingredients, and then goes into the brewing process. It has another level dedicated to their different marketing and advertising campaigns over the years. You then take a class on how to pour the perfect pint. Finally you end on the top floor, called the Gravity Bar that is all glass and shows a 360 degree view of the city. At first, we were psyched because there wasn't a long line to get in, but unfortunately we didn't realize that meant that everyone was already inside. It actually kind of detracted from the experience because there were so many people we couldn't see anything. The bar was  PACKED we couldn't even get an inch of table space. It was still fun and I would recommend going, but it was pretty frustrating constantly having people in the way.

high quality H2O

Hops that can grow up to 15 feet

We're experts now! They gave us certificates and everything!

view from the Gravity Bar

Jameson was a lot less crowded and more enjoyable. I had never been to a distillery before so I learned a lot! Unfortunately, the whiskey isn't made at this location anymore, but it was still cool to see how the process worked.

The different colors in the barrels show how long the whiskey has been aging in there. Starting with the bottom left, it's been in there for a year, the middle one has been in there three years, bottom right for five years, top left for twelve and top left for fifteen ( I think!)

At the end of the tour, we had a tasting of  different whiskeys.  On the right is Scottish Whiskey (Johnnie Walker Black), the middle is Irish Whiskey (Jameson) and the left is American whiskey (Jack Daniels)

I think Connor's favorite part of doing these tours is getting me to finally drink beer and whiskey and not, as he calls them, fruity girly drinks!