Today, I am going to
talk about the Old Jameson Distillery. Some people may think that I should have
done this earlier when I was writing about other things in Dublin, but it
really doesn’t matter about the order of these posts as I am writing about the
place or event so that people can get a real idea of what it’s like over there.
The Old Jameson Distillery
is situated in Dublin near Smithfield Square. It is the original location of
the distillery and, before moving from Dublin, covered more than 5 acres of
land. I read that it “was like a city within a city” because of the professions
that were involved with the company. There were “a Smithy, Cooperage, saw mills, engineers,
carpenters, painters and coppersmiths’ shops.” (Wikipedia) The amount of
water that was required for the making of whiskey was a large amount. There were
two wells on the property.
When
you look at the trades that were involved with the distillery, you would sometimes
wonder why. Perhaps it was found to me more inexpensive to make your own
barrels for the aging of the whiskey. After all, if you pay another company to
make the barrels for you, you also have to give them enough money so that they
can show a profit and stay in business. But, if you have enough money to be
able to have the space, purchase and store the raw materials needed, and pay
the coopers and carpenters, then you might want to think twice about
contracting the work out. After all, you want to have the highest quality work
for your product. There may have also been the possibility that the amount of
barrels required by the company was too much for smaller business to handle
along with the work from other companies.
The
Old Jameson Distillery got to the point where there was no room left to grow in
the original location. After all, in 1966, Jameson merged with The Cork
Distillery Company and John Power and Son to form the Irish Distillers Group. The
move brought three rivals under one umbrella. The distillery was the last
distillery to close in 1971.
What
happened was that the distillery reopened in a new location, the New Midleton
Distillery in Cork. Most of the buildings in the old location were dismantled
with the main building being kept as offices. Sometime during the 1990s there
was a fire which lead to the building becoming run down. A decision was made
about 15 years ago to upgrade the building and give it new life. Since completion,
it has apartments, shops, restaurants, and, apparently, has a hotel. There is
also a visitors’ center that describes how whiskey is made and offers samples.
John
Jameson made a sound financial move when he moved from Scotland to Dublin and
began to work for Bow Street Distillery the late 1790s.
