We Irish are a garrulous folk, given to long-winded debates at the drop of a hat on just about any subject from politics to how one should brew a pot of tea. There’s one thing however, on which just about every Irish man and woman will concur. One of the best places to meet and swap a tale or two is the neighborhood local. Pub that is.
According to Bushmill’s Irish Pub Guide there are 11,000 pubs scattered about Ireland. Scattered is perhaps a poor choice of word. At the end of the nineteenth century, Madame de Bovet, a visiting French writer, ended her description of a country town’s bustling market street with “at every three doors [there was] a tavern.” In the intervening years, a few more have opened.
The Irish have been brewing and distilling potent potables forever.
Long ago, people kept bees to make mead from a fermentation of honey, water and herbs — it was the hero’s drink. St. Brigid, who was known far and wide for the bounty that flowed from her kitchen and the fine ale that flowed from her brewery, is said to have given a cup of mead to the King of Leinster when he visited her convent. Evidently His Majesty was overwhelmingly impressed with her offering. In return he gave the saintly woman a generous donation of land and money to help with her charities.
Saint Patrick brought his own brewer to Ireland, but it was hardly necessary. The Celts had been mixing up a beer called coirm for a millennium.
In the early Irish epic Tain Bo Culainge, King Conchubar often spent “…a third of his day feasting, a third watching the young warriors wrestle, and a third drinking coirm until he falls asleep.” The size of Celtic storage casks was on an epic scale too. They were as large as houses!
Although anyone in Old Ireland was allowed to brew his own ale, Brehon law stipulated a strict code for those who sold ale in public houses. When the Normans arrived, they instituted regulations to control brewing. Only women were allowed to make ale, and although men owned the ale-houses, women operated them. They offered their customers oysters, smoked salmon and soda bread as well as flagons of frothy ale. In the seventeenth century, the French traveler Jouvin wrote, “If I drink two-pence worth of beer at a public house, I am given as much as I want of bread, meat, butter, cheese and fish.”
The art of distilling alcohol was brought to Ireland from the Mediterranean by missionaries some time around the fifth century. Since it was used mostly for medicinal purposes, its Latin name was aqua vitae or “water of life.” When the phrase was translated into Gaelic it became uisce beatha which the Normans later Anglicized to whiskey.
In many Irish folk tales the hero sets out on a dangerous journey to the Well at the World’s End searching for the Water of life. Along the way he performs superhuman feats, and encounters sages who help him secure this magical elixir that can restore the vigor of youth and cure all ills.
In fact, some of whiskey’s earliest uses were medicinal. Before the invention of antiseptics, anisthetics and antibiotics, it was employed to clean wounds and relieve pain, and was mixed with herbs to make curative tonics.
It’s unlikely that modern whiskey drinkers would appreciate the taste of the whiskey that was popular during the Middle Ages. It was sweet and flavored with a number of things including raisins, dates, licorice, anise seed and sundry other herbs. The closest one comes today to that medieval flavor is a hot drink called Whiskey Punch in which a measure of whiskey is mixed with hot water, lemon slices, sugar and cloves.
Although most uisce beatha drinkers swear that whiskey should only be served “neat,” that is, with a splash of water, an inventive bartender at the Flying Boat airfield in Foynes, Co. Limerick thought otherwise.
Sometime during World War II on a night that was particularly cold and wet, he met arriving transatlantic passengers with steaming mugs of a concoction he called Irish Coffee. His combination of strong black coffee laced with sugar and Irish whiskey and topped with a thick layer of heavy cream has become a drink that’s synonymous with Ireland throughout the world.
A visit to any Irish pub will soon show that although whiskey’s popular enough, its a properly pulled pint of rich dark Guinness topped with a collar of thick creamy foam that’s the drink of choice. On New Year’s Eve 1759, Arthur Guinness took possession of an old brewery located at St. James Gate, a defense point in what had once been Dublin’s medieval walled city. With typically understated Irish optimism, Arthur had negotiated a 9,000-year lease on the property for an annual sum of forty-five pounds sterling, plus free use of all the water he’d ever need from the River Liffey.
When Arthur’s black beer took off like a rocket, the city fathers realized what a dreadful mistake they’d made. A sheriff attempted to close the waterline, but Arthur appeared brandishing a pickaxe and hurling a volley of Irish curses. After a twenty-year court battle, compromise was reached and Guinness became not only Ireland’s favorite brew but one of the nation’s chief employers and sources of revenue.
Guinness production now exceeds 750 million pints a year and its proceeds fund numerous cultural events around the world. To its credit, the brewery’s advertising policy leads the push for Ireland’s modern stance on alcoholism awareness. Not long ago, I sat in the Saint James corporate office with the firm’s chief of sales and marketing. The walls sported aged examples of the firm’s archive advertisements proclaiming “Guinness For Strength” with burly men pulling carts in which sat their hulking horses. But the table before me was piled with brochures cautioning moderation, designated driver advisories, and safe sex practices. I was duly impressed.
As the tide turns, pubs too are changing. Always bastions of hospitality, the localy is now frequented as much for its grub as its brew. This is especially true outside the major cities where regional specialties and authentic country cooking showcase Ireland’s superb seafoods and meats, luscious cheeses, and legendary breads.
All along the coast, even at remote seaside establishments, you’ll find heaping bowls of the best steamed mussels in all of Europe. Around Galway Town plates of sweet plump oysters are not to be missed. In Counties Cork and Kerry, it’s the cheese you’ll be after tasting. Dublin’s the place for Coddle, a savory mix of potatoes, onions and spicy pork sausages, and Crubeens, the traditional pub snack of jellied pig’s trotters. Nearly every establishment across the length and breadth of the island offers its own version of creamy vegetable soup, oak-smoked salmon, warm brown bread and lemon tarts. And when the menu reads Irish Stew or Cabbage and Bacon, rest assured it’s just the kind your mother’s mother used to make.
According to a recent story that ran in the San Diego daily paper, facsimiles of traditional Irish pubs are springing up all over England and the United States. While it’s unlikely that they’ll be serving mead or Ireland’s fabulous pub grub, it’s certain they’ll have on hand a selection of fine Irish whiskies and ales, a tap that’s pouring Guinness, and plenty of any local pub’s true treasures-comradery and conversation. Slainte!
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the September / October 1997 issue of Irish America. ⬥
Recipes
Crubeens
8 unsmoked pig trotters (crubeens)
2 onions, peeled and sliced thick
2 carrots, peeled and sliced thick
1 bay leaf
1 small bunch of fresh parsley
6 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 teaspoons dry mustard
Wash the crubeens, put them in a large soup pot, and cover with cold water. Add the onions, carrots, bay leaf, parsley, thyme, and mustard. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 2 hours, or until the meat is tender and separates easily form the bone. Drain. The reserved stock and vegetables makes an excellent soup base. Serve the crubeens hot or cold with soda bread and mustard sauce.
Makes 4 servings.
- Irish Country Recipes, by Ann & Sarah Gomar
Michael Kelly’s Mustard Sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon dry mustard powder
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons garlic vinegar
1 cup melted butter
In a small saucepan, blend together sugar, mustard, pepper, and vinegar. Warm the mixture over low heat until well combined. Fradually stir in the melted butter. Makes 1 cup.
Note: Michael Kelly, a Corkman, was a 19th century virtuoso who became director of music at the Theatre Royal in 1822. He preferred his crubeens dipped in mustard sauce.
- Irish Traditional Food by Theodora Fitzgibbons.
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