IRELAND’S ANCIENT EAST TRAIL

Hotel pick up included. Today, with us, you will discover Ireland’s Ancient East. We’re travelling through the lesser beaten tourism track and we’ve two fantastic distillery visits lined up for you today. Our first stop is Powerscourt Distillery where after a quick look at the stunning Powerscourt House & Gardens, we take a guided tour of the plant, visit to the onsite maturation warehouse and whiskey tasting which includes Fercullen Premium Blend, 10 YO Single Grain, 14 YO Single Malt and 18 YO Single Malt – the wonderful whiskeys of Powerscourt, made by renowned Master Distillery, Noel Sweeney and his team.

We continue south visiting a monastic site dating back to the 6th century along the way. Glendalough is steeped in history, and we share it with you – it is very relevant, after all – our Irish monks invented whiskey! We’ll suggest a great Glendalough pub where you can pick up some lunch.

We’re just a short drive to Kilkenny. Kilkenny is a medieval city in southeast Ireland, arguably the most prominent medieval city in the country. We’ll leave you to explore it at leisure this evening. We’ve booked you at a 5***** hotel on the edge of town and you can transfer into the city to discover the grand Kilkenny Castle which was built in 1195 by Norman occupiers and overlooks the town. The town has deep religious roots and many well-preserved churches and monasteries, including the imposing St. Canice’s Cathedral and the Black Abbey Dominican priory, both from the 13th century. It’s also a crafts hub, with shops along its winding lanes selling pottery, paintings and jewellery – a shopper’s paradise! There’s no shortage of pubs with live music and great restaurants to choose from for dinner.

Enjoy a famous Full Irish breakfast in your hotel, at your leisure this morning. We’re starting our visits today at a new distillery built on a very old Irish estate in County Carlow. Royal Oak Distillery is home to The Busker Irish Whiskey. It is the first brand to offer the full compliment of the Irish Whiskey story – Single Grain, Single Malt, Single Pot Still and a blend of all three types… all from one distillery. We’ll depart towards the ‘sunny south east’, travelling not far to Ireland’s oldest city – Waterford.

Waterford is most famous for it’s hugely successful crystal of course, but it also here that the vikings first entered Ireland and chose Waterford for their first settlement. Tour the Waterford Crystal factory and browse the retail store, a chance to pick up a new Waterford Crystal decanter maybe! Waterford is our rest stop for lunch also and then we take a 90 minute transit across the county of Waterford to County Cork, finishing today in the town of Midleton in East Cork – a very important town on the Irish whiskey map!

Full Irish breakfast at your hotel, at your leisure this morning. We’re turning north towards Dublin this morning, passing the village of Dungourney on the way out of Cork. The Dungourney river is the water source for the distillery in Midleton – all Jameson whiskey sold worldwide is made by water from this river. Just 40 minutes away, we have our first visit of the day, to Blackwater Distillery,  on the banks of the River Blackwater. Peter, John and the gang operate a micro-distillery at Blackwater, making a delicious small-batch gin and they are resurrecting the original forgotten processes of making Irish whiskey. You will try some of their new-make spirit during the visit along with a very refreshing Blackwater gin & tonic. The distillery is located in the sleepy village of Ballyduff in West Waterford, from here you’ll enjoy lovely scenery  as we make our way to County Tipperary – it’s not ‘a long way’ as the song goes, it’s actually only another 40 minute drive from Blackwater.