Day 2: The Angels Portion

Turns out constantly walking around a city when you’re job entirely consists of sitting down all day is tiring. I believe if my feet had the choice they would choose to walk some other poor schmuck around Europe for the next month. But, I’m somewhat attached so I decided give them a brief reprive as we drove up north to a distillery of our name sake. The Cooley Distillery is a small whiskey distillery in North Eastern Ireland near the Cooley Penninsula.

On our way there we spotted a cute little Cafe in a suburban neighborhood called the Lemonade Cafe. The modern design caught our eye, the delicious food filled our belly and we kept on our way.

In truth we are not related to the Cooley’s of distillery fame, but it was hard to pass up all the same. It wasn’t looking good when we showed up to the distillery and they said they didn’t do tours. Their tours are done through a little pub named Martin’s pub, but it was locked up and looked desserted. But hey, we’re Cooley’s! We don’t give up without at least knocking. Luckily someone answered. The Pub was closed for another hour but the man who normally does the tours was upstairs so the pub worker got him. John informed us that they weren’t doing tours today, when he heard we were leaving tomorrow he offered to do a short tasting with us.

We graciously accepted, how nice! John took about 45 minutes with us sharing how the distilling process goes, the history of the Cooley distillery and allowed us to try 4 different types of whiskey. Excluding of course, the angels portion. The angels portion is the 2% of whiskey that evaporates as a burnt offering of sorts each year as the whiskey ages in it’s barrels. If you ever see Kilbeggan Whiskey that is from the Cooley Distillery, do yourself a favor and get it, you’re welcome!

Thanks to John’s kindness we got a free tasting and enjoyed a drive through the lush green Irish landscape. No complaints here! On our way back through we stopped in Lordship, Ireland, a small Irish town, to admire the local livestock as well as a beautiful classic old church.

When we arrived back in Dublin we walked to the Guinness Brewery. If I didn’t know better I’d say they don’t want people to visit because the entrance was very difficult to find. But once you get inside… man. It’s like Disneyland for beer fans. Automated tours and architecture that would make Disney imagineers blush. Even if you’re not a huge fan of Guinness as a beer I’d suggest this tour as it ends with a beautiful 360 degree view of the city. On a clear day it’s something to behold, the best view in the city for sure.

From there we headed to Trinity Bible College in a disappointing attempt to see the Book of Kells. Sadly, it was closed by the time we arrived. Being one who prefers to see the glass as half full, I enjoyed walking through the real Dublin. It’s amazing how drastically the culture of a city changes just three or four blocks off the main tourist strip. Want to get to know a city? I have two tips.

1) Check out the rooftops to get a high up view of the City.
2) Walk off the beaten path and try the restaurants the locals try.

After finishing a walk that reminded my feet why they want to leave me we arrived back at the hotel for a brief repreive. We finished off our day in Dublin at Nancy Hands, a two story pub just a block and a half from our hotel. A fact which I’m sure made my feet smile. Being a weeknight it was very relaxed in Nancy Hands, we had an opportunity to chat with the bartenders who were amazed to hear that it takes about 16 hours to drive the length of California. In fact when we said Sacramento was about 8 1/2 hours from Los Angeles he said “And you’re still in California?”

“You could drive up and down ireland five times in that time!”
– Bartender

The Nancy Hands was a wonderful finisher to our way to brief stay in Dublin. Next time we come back I know we’ll stay longer. Well that’s all for now. We need to wake up in six hours to catch our plane to London. Here goes nothing…

Cheers,
B&B