GINGER FLANDERS: "Think you can Irish up this coffee for me?"
Ned Flanders: "Whoops, watch the swears, honeybear. We don't use the I word in this house."
In American English, "Irish" is synonymous for "drunk." For better or worse, drinking is what we associate with the Irish and St. Patrick's Day, along with the color green, potato famine, and Patrick banishing all snakes from Ireland.
Fun fact: St. Patrick's Day falls during Lent, but traditionally, the Lenten dietary restrictions (including restrictions on alcohol consumption) are lifted to celebrate Ireland's favorite saint. This might explain the rowdiness of the American version of the holiday, especially in heavily non-Catholic areas, where "loosening restrictions on how much you can drink" isn't a religious move, but a physiological one.
One of the most common uses of the I word is as a modifier for the words pub or bar. My Irish whiskey research for this column took me to my local whiskey bar, the Old Gold, where Andrew Finkelman teaches Whiskey 101 and Whiskey 201 courses. We were joined by Old Gold proprietor and the Portland Mercury's favorite bad penny, Ezra Caraeff, who pointed out that Ireland is probably the only country that has themed bars in every other country.
"You can spend the day hiking in Costa Rica and then go to an Irish pub and get a Guinness," Caraeff says. "It's everywhere."
Finkelman gave me a brief history of Irish whiskey.
"In the 1600s and 1700s, Irish whiskey was whiskey—the tsar of Russia drank it," Finkelman says. "Even in Scotland, they were drinking Irish whiskey."
The Irish made whiskey in copper pot stills, and for the most part, they still do. It's harder and it takes longer than distilling in a column still, so naturally it's the Irish way.
"In fact," Finkelman says, "the column still was invented in Ireland. And this guy, Aeneas Coffey, took it to the Irish distillers and said, 'Hey, we can make whiskey faster and easier with this new still.' But they said, 'That's not how we make whiskey.' So he took it to Scotland."
Then came the Irish temperance movement, followed by the Irish War of Independence, during which Irish whiskey lost its English market. During American Prohibition, Irish distillers were less willing or able than the Scottish to get their whiskeys to America. At every crucial moment, there stood the Irish distiller, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in one hand, and a loaded gun in the other, pointed at his foot.
By the 1960s, there were basically three Irish distillers. They formed a conglomerate, and in the '80s that conglomerate was bought by Pernod. Brand ownership is an often confusing thing in spirits, but the fact that Jameson, the biggest Irish whiskey in the world, is owned by the French may not sit well with—well, maybe anybody, but luckily the options are getting better.
There's a boom of new distilleries in Ireland. In America, we're seeing options from the higher end—Yellow Spot and Green Spot, which are fruity, bright, bonded single-pot still whiskeys partly aged in sherry casks, and owned and sold by independent Irish wine merchants—to new Jameson killers like the sweet, round Donegal Estates, which is American owned, Irish distilled, and affordable.
In fact, except in extreme cases, no Irish whiskey on the market will hit you as hard in the wallet as Scotch or bourbon. Even Yellow Spot, widely regarded as one of the best Irish whiskeys, is under $100 a bottle in Oregon. So this week, forget the green beer and please, please don't order an Irish Car Bomb. Settle in with an Irish whiskey, the beverage that truly represents the long history of ups and downs for the Irish.
Portland Irish Pubs with St. Paddy's Day Festivities
Ranked by I-Word factor (i.e., aggregate fetishized American Irishness):
Paddy's
65 SW Yamhill
Hastily Estimated Percent of Green Decor: 15
Best Potato Dish: Moscow Mule
Number of Snakes: 0
Number of Bagpipe Performances on St. Patrick's Day: 5
I-Word Factor: Some guy named Colin
County Cork Public House
1329 NE Fremont
Hastily Estimated Percent of Green Decor: 25
Best Potato Dish: Pass
Number of Snakes: 0
Specificity Beyond Just Ireland: County level
I-Word Factor: The leprechaun from Lucky Charms
Katie O'Brien's
2809 NE Sandy
Hastily Estimated Percent of Green Decor: 10
Best Potato Dish: O'Brien Scramble (somehow not quite Potatoes O'Brien)
Number of Snakes: 0
Black Leather-and-Wood Captain's Chairs at the Bar?: Yes
I-Word Factor: The leprechaun from Leprechaun
Kells
112 SW 2nd & 210 NW 21st
Hastily Estimated Percent of Green Decor: 25
Best Potato Dish: The buttermilk sauce that comes with the french fries
Number of Snakes: 0
Merchandise Includes Tartan Necktie?: Yes
I-Word Factor: Conor McGregor bare-knuckle boxing King George V
Scotty's Irish
next to Fat Cobra on N Interstate
[closed, presumably full of snakes]
