We decided today to go to the Birr Castle Estate in Demense and Kilbeggan Distillary.
Birr Estate particularly as Steve wanted to see the Great Telescope, which at it's time was apparently the biggest in the world. The Parsons family, who owned, still own, the estate/castle, were all techincal and scientists in some way.
The third earl of Rosse, William Parsons, designed the telescope.
We also had a look around some of the gardens, though time was tight as we had a 2pm booking at the Kilbeggan Distillary, which was 45 mins drive away.
We all said that we reckoned Josh would have liked this place.
One of the Parsons is credited with measuring the surface temperature of the moon using an extension he built for the telescope. Up until his measurements it was thought that the moons surface temperature as zero degrees, he measured the surface temp at about 97 degrees C and when Apollo landed and they took measurements is was remarkable close to Parsons measurements. Neil Armstrong wrote to the Parsons family thanking them for their contribution to science.
Birr Castle and Gardens
We then drove up to Kilbeggan Distillary, Steve thinking that it was a truly craft distillary as opposed to the other one close by, Tullamore Distillary (Tullamore Dew) being part of Grants.
Our tour was 2pm and we were met by Carol who shattered Steve's thoughts quite quickly as Kilbeggan actually closed and was left, almost derelict, but then was picked up by Connemara Distillary who were then bought out by..... Jim Beam and Suntory (the Japanese distillary)!!
They have not long ago brough back some distilling to Kilbeggan and their famous "brew" is their pot still whiskey, €65 a bottle as they have stopped distilling it.
The tour was quite good and as there were only 5 of us we were able to work with Carol on queries, questions and so on. We met one of the distillers who took the trouble, in quite some detail, to explain the steps they take.
The original water wheel is still working but does not grind the grain any more.
They have a rather unique way of storing the barrels of whisky in a 1940's built concrete "nissan" hut, which is at a remakable steady temperature.
We then had a tasting session, which as always was rather good. Lots of banter etc. Steve managed to persuade Carol to let us try the pot still whiskey, which was actually the best tasting but a little ahead of our budget!
We had a coffee and cake then went to the gift shop and ended up buying some bottles. The single malt that Mnada liked and the peat whiskey that Steve liked. Shaun also said he enjoyed the tasting session though whiskey is not really his "bag".
We were going to go back to Birr Castle but basically ran out of time so went back to the cottage.
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