Poitín
Videos
Poitín, anglicized as poteen or potcheen, is a traditional Irish distilled beverage. Former common names for Poitín were "Irish moonshine" and "mountain dew". It was traditionally distilled in a small pot still and the term is a diminutive of the Irish word pota, meaning "pot". The Irish word for a hangover is póit. In accordance with the Irish Poteen/Irish Poitín technical file, it can only be made from cereals, grain, whey, sugar beet, molasses and potatoes.
Bottles of legally produced poitín
Legal poitín
Erskine Nicol, A Nip Against the Cold, 1869.
Irish whiskey
Videos
Irish whiskey is whiskey made on the island of Ireland. The word 'whiskey' comes from the Irish uisce beatha, meaning water of life. Irish whiskey was once the most popular spirit in the world, though a long period of decline from the late 19th century onwards greatly damaged the industry, so much so that although Ireland boasted at least 28 distilleries in the 1890s, by 1966 this number had fallen to just two, and by 1972 the remaining distilleries, Bushmills Distillery and Old Midleton Distillery, were owned by just one company, Irish Distillers.
Three Irish whiskeys: Knappogue Castle, Jameson, and Bushmills
Erskine Nicol – A Nip Against the Cold – An Irishman pouring whiskey 1869. Part of Erskine Nicol Irish collection, painting of Irish life.
The Old Midleton Distillery, built in 1825, hosts a mammoth 31,618 gallon Pot still, so big that the still room needed to be built around it. Although no longer in use, it remains in place inside the old distillery building.
Jameson's Bow Street distillery pictured in Alfred Barnard's 1887 report on the distilleries of Britain and Ireland