Giants and whiskey

As it turned out we slept in my second cousin's bed last night. I guess that's just the kind of thing you're supposed to do for families though. We of course stayed and talked to the Johnsons until 12, even though we woke up at 8 o'clock initially. Very hospitable people.

After a very hardy breakfast and a promise to stay connected we left the Winston's house with very clear directions for how to get to the Bushmills distillery, “right down the road for a bit, then make a left” Those are the directions to everything in Ireland, regardless of whether it's on the left or not...

However it's a big tourist attraction so it was on every map, and every second street sign as we got close to it. Gotta love Ireland, no clear signs until drinks are involved. We made it to Bushmills relatively easily of course. Now for those of you who don't know, Bushmills is an Irish whiskey which means it's distilled 3 times instead of 2, and is spelt with an “e”, whiskey. The tour was nice, short and sweet, straight to the point. You got to see the real factory at work. The Guinness tour was more well put together, but this tour is definitely worth a the price of admission. Seeing the real distillery instead of a replica was certainly a nice feature.

Of course we got to try a free sample at the end. Bushmills has 5 main bottles that you can buy all over the world at any time, however they have 2 that are what you might call “limited edition”. One which was made to celebrate their 400^th anniversary, it was made 4 years ago on a massive scale but when it they run out would be done forever. The other which could only be purchased at the distillery. Between the two of us we got a sample of each just to we could feel like we took advantage of the limited offer.

Carefully deliberating which we liked more, my dad bought me a bottle to open on the day I have my first kid. Which ideally is fairly far down the road in my life, but a nice gesture.

Fortunately enough the distillery is just down the road and to the left of our B&B that we're staying in tonight. Carnside Guest House (our B&B) is honestly just a stones throw away from Giant's Causeway. You see it's funny because-- I'll get back to that soon, just remember this!

Giants Causeway is a geological phenomenon on the north coast of Ireland. Do to some volcanic activity many years ago the rocks in this cove have formed to look like columns of rocks all stacked on top of each other. Irish legend says that Finn McCool (a giant) used to throw these stones across the water to Scotland, which you can see from the causeway, in an attempt to build a bridge. (See, a stones throw away, I'm so clever :P)

It's really a great experience. You can go for free, if you don't use their parking lot. Making the price right, however if you pay for parking then you get to visit the giftshop after. Thrilling, I know. However you also get a little blue box that looks like a cell phone. I can only assume that it gives information on the causeway that I wasn't privy to. It's truly a, as the locals would say, grand view. Worth the short drive up regardless of if you pay for parking or not.

I'll get some pictures of that up before I leave here, but I posted some earlier today so I feel like I don't have to post more quite yet.

Best of luck from our Northern-most sleeping location in Ireland.

-Matt