The Quiet Irishman

I am lucky enough to count a handful of Irish people among my friends. I like them a lot, they are nice, gentle and caring, if a tad sentimental people, with a penchant for story-telling and a distinct twinkle in their eyes. For some reason their whiskey is the same – that is most of it. Unfortunately their two most well-known brands are a bit lacking in this respect. Tullamore Dew, the eternal irish coffee ingredient, is one of them, but that will have to wait. The other one is Jameson. And that is by far the best selling Irish whiskey of all time.

I am writing this on a cold, dark and dismal October night in a rainy and windy Copenhagen, trying my very best to feel comforted and warmed by the glass of standard Jameson standing in front of my computer-screen, but to tell you the truth, I am failing a bit. I mean there is nothing particularly wrong with Jameson, it doesn’t taste bad or anything, but the twinkle is missing somehow. Perhaps John Jameson forgot to put it in, when he started making Jameson whiskey back in 1780. He was a Scotsman after all. Or perhaps the personality has been breed out of it over the years. I am quite certain Jameson whiskey can be drunk by practically everybody, from an Australian housewife to a Swedish teenager on his first binge, but when you are trying to meet everybody’s taste, you end of being well, dare I say it, slightly boring.

But still, let’s take a closer look. It is a very nice looking whiskey, a light golden and very beautiful colour – I would hate being the painter having to reproduce that in a portrait or something – a quiet and very discreet smell, nothing much, a slight touch of something fruity perhaps, but nothing that my nose can detect besides that. Perhaps it is the elusive pear something so strangely common in Irish whiskey but almost non-existent in all other kinds of whisky.

The taste – again very discreet, very mild and gentle - like an old butler wafting in soundlessly on the evening breeze, and placing your drink on the table with a soft “Your drink, Sir”. There is a slight hint of something nutty and a certain raisin-like sweetness, but that’s about it. The finish is surprisingly long and varm for something that gentle, but quite nice. Nothing complex, no hidden depths of taste that I can discern. Again nice, mild – and ever so slightly boring. Although I am quite certain it would do excellent as an additive to various drinks, coffee and so on. I one tried making a chocolate cake with a generous dollop of Jameson in it. That went down quite well, but as a drink, there is lots more interesting stuff out there. Although to be fair – if you add a few drops of water, Jameson does liven up a bit, but it still lacks that famous Irish twinkle.

But do please bear in mind, this is the standard Jameson – there are other older and beefier variations, but those I will try on another and even colder evening.