Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, Irish Whiskey!

Neat. Of course. With some Guinness. There is still some civilization left in the world.

Oh, the suffering I undergo for you people.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. St. Patrick’s Day is, functionally, tomorrow. We’re bracing for an epic bar crawl, with a bevy of Midori-fueled emerald cocktails on the menu. It’s going to be epic. Before the green stuff hits the fan, I thought I’d take a little time off from doomscrolling and sip something comfortable. Let’s crack open some Irish whiskey and stop worrying for a while. This bottle’s a fun little find that illustrates what makes The Water of Life so special. Let’s have a sip and relax.

Uais The Triple Blend Irish Whiskey

Serve neat. Sip Slowly. Relax. Enjoy. Take a few deep breaths. Put down your phone. Watch the fire. Listen to some Gaelic Storm. It’s going to be okay.

I’m going to start off with a bit of heresy from an American bartender: I don’t like bourbon. It’s boring. To qualify as bourbon, a spirit must be at least 51 percent corn, made in America, and aged for at least three years in charred American oak casks. I’ve tasted so many bourbons by now. Some are made with care and craft; some are made by get-rich-quick schemers looking to make a buck. After a while, they all taste the same.

Irish whiskey is a lot looser with its definitions. Irish whiskey must be made with some malted cereals, fermented with yeast, and aged in Ireland in wooden barrels. There’s a ton of wiggle room in that definition, and the variety of Irish whiskeys proves the point. The only consistent factor is the need for malted grain, which is hardly a great sacrifice. (Malted grains are cereals that have been partly germinated, then toasted to stop them from sprouting. I’ve snacked on malted barley at a distiller’s before, and it’s incredibly tasty. Pretzels use malted flour; so does a chocolate malted shake at the ice cream parlor.)

This particular bottle is everything you can do to Irish whiskey, all mixed together in a glorious smorgasbord. Uais whiskey is 25 percent pot still whiskey — mostly barley, some malted, some not. The English, being English, started taxing malted barley in the 1800s. The Irish cut their whiskey with unmalted barley, found the end product tasted better, and kept on making the good stuff. It’s 25 percent single malt whiskey, made with nothing but malted barley. And the rest is “grain whiskey,” made with oats, corn, whatever’s tasty. The end results aged in wood — some charred ex-bourbon casks, some virgin oak. It’s definitely an “everything but the kitchen sink” whiskey, the sort of thing you almost never see in America.

But Lord, is it ever tasty. I get pineapple and honey on the nose of this spirit, plus some of the funkiness I associate with top-notch Jamaican rum. It is so very, very smooth. You don’t need water, or ice, or anything to enjoy this liquid gold. All you need is time, and space to breathe.

Okay. We’ve decompressed from the news a bit. Time for something a bit more … robust to get us up and moving.

Jameson Triple Triple

Put an ice cube in this one, it’s a bit more robust. Savor the nut and apple notes at the front of the whiskey. Grab an Irish ale to wash down the burn. When you’re good and ready, pop some Dropkick Murphys into your headphones. Stand up, stretch, and get ready to fight the next round. We aren’t down for the count yet.

Jameson’s is going to flow like water on St. Paddy’s Day, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t make some good stuff. This whiskey’s been aged in oak, sherry, and chestnut casks. You’ll never find a combination like that in American bourbon. It’s nutty, complex, and sweet, and it’s a bit hot going down, but we deserve this. It’s only a buck or two more than regular Jaymo, and so much nicer. I have determined, after scientific experimentation, that shots of Jameson are smoother on St. Paddy’s Day than on any other day of the year. You owe it to yourself to determine the veracity of that theory. A few beers would help the process. Guinness is cliché. It’s also really good. Drink what you like. I won’t judge.

Bottle shot. Let me know if you don’t know how to pour the Guinness. I’m here to help.

And then pop in some Dropkick Murphys. This band is so very, very much on our side. If there was ever a Celtic punk band that has our corner, this is the one. Listen here if you don’t believe me. Or here. We aren’t done yet. We got this. Take a deep breath. Stand up. Call out the Black and Tans one more time. We aren’t done fighting yet. If I’ve convinced you to toss a sawbuck down at the liquor store for a bottle of good Irish whiskey, toss one more into the kitty for Wonkette. This is one of the last, lonely fronts in the war for sanity and goodness in America. It’s St. Patrick’s Day. We’re all Fighting Irish now.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. If you try to get on Saturday during the bar crawl, God help you. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you … or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette.

OPEN THREAD!