whisky is whiskey

I’ve been scrolling down along comments about an article that Ada sent along about the difference between Bushmills and Jamieson as far as what religion they are . They’re both Irish whiskeys , of course . The author of the article seems to conclude that the controversy about whether one’s Catholic and the other’s Protestant is just myth .

The more interesting part of my reading was to see some of the many comments attached . I sometimes peruse comments after some such bit of writing and wonder : These people ( commenters ) have a lot of time on their hands ! Get a life !

Of course I’m one of the time spenders from time to time on such frivolous pursuits . But , oh well ! , here we go .

The article writer makes a couple of points such as that the Jamieson original brewery was started by a Scottish immigrant to Ireland . The English imported Scots to Ireland to displace the native ( Catholic ) population ; but that was way back in centuries . The myth originates, the article said , in the fact that Bushmills is made in a Protestant part of Ireland and Jamiesons is made in a Catholic part .

One commenter calls the article superficial . Oh , they expected , rather , a historical analysis written by a university tenured professor ? Hey , a magazine writer’s got to make a living too ! It’s Saint Patrick’s Day time , after all !

Some of the commenters were from Ireland . Some wrote in from the UK . Many of them said that whiskey is whiskey . The Irish commenters suggested that we all just enjoy the best whiskey in the world , Irish whiskey . A few mentioned that whiskey doesn’t have a religion .

As far as I scrolled down through the comments , only one guy mentioned that the Bushmills company at one time discriminated against Catholics. Wouldn’t hire Catholics is the way I heard it .

The reason I was caught up for a few minutes with this article is that it is St. Paddy’s Day and I remember a reunion several years ago that my mother’s siblings were able to have . My mom was the hostess and when the group arrived my mother offered them a drink . How about a whiskey ?

My Uncle Dick , always a jokester , inquired whether it was Catholic whiskey or Protestant whiskey . He’d drink the Catholic whiskey , he said , but not the Protestant stuff . He was saying that for the reaction , of course . He didn’t give a hoot what kind of whiskey it was .

My mother began to protest by proclaiming that ‘whisky is whiskey’ . It’s not Catholic or Protestant , she said . My uncle replied whatever his comments were that came next to fire up the controversy . It was all ( mostly ) light-hearted . Pretty soon they were all offering their takes on the issue . Uncle Dick had got the reaction that he wanted , a little animated foolish banter about Irish whiskey .

At least it was a bit of fun for a few minutes to start their family reunion off on a humorous note . No one ( as far as I know ) sat down afterward to write a treatise on Bushmills or Jamieson being Catholic or Protestant . And , have we heard from the other religious groups yet ? How about the atheist perspective ?

One of the commenters after the aforementioned article said that anyone who has to seriously discuss what religion a whiskey is or isn’t probably shouldn’t be drinking whiskey anyway . I couldn’t agree more .

Happy St. Patrick’s Day !

hateful things

I recently wrote a post ( I thought at first to say ‘penned a post’ . Alliteration , you know ; but I don’t use a pen , of course , so I left ‘penned a post’ out . ) about things I hate . It was tongue-in-cheek , of course . I don’t hate possums , for example . Another blogger pointed out a few of the good things possums do in the world . They help control the spread of Lyme disease , for example , because they eat ticks . Good for them , I say ! I hope no possums read my post .

I don’t really hate politicians , either , or stock brokers , or whomever I happened to mention in my past post ( There ! Got the alliteration in ! ) . I am , I have to say , irritated by people who park in the middle in front of my house and block the space for a second vehicle to park , but , well , hate would be an exaggeration for my feelings about that . Who could hate someone for doing something febrile like that ! ( Okay , so febrile isn’t the right word ; but it’s a good word . How about ‘peripheral’ ? No , not quite .)

Anyway , I just finished reading a short essay by a woman who was a royal court lady in 10th Century Japan entitled ‘Hateful Things’ . Evidently a lot of things irritated her . The essay is included in a book that my friend Joe , the writer , poet , musician , insurance man, and teacher sent me . He and I taught together way back when in a previous century . Joe abandoned the teaching game for several years until he finally realized the error of his ways and got back into it after he retired from the insurance gig . Did I mention in my previous post ( Yeah , alliteration again .) how I hate insurance companies ? Oh well , as they like to say on cable news these days : There’s a lot to unpack there ! We’ll discuss that later .

The essay is one of the many in the book that Joe sent entitled ‘The Art of the Personal Essay’ written by a man named Phillip Lopate . Well , he didn’t author the essays ; he selected them and wrote the introduction . Joe said that he used the book in his literature classes . Or did he say his rhetoric classes and rhetoric classes were more or less the same thing as literature classes . Anyway , if his students paid any attention whatever and put in some effort , I’m sure those students , all adults I think , benefitted from Joe’s instruction .

Joe thought that I might like to read the book . If I tried to read it cover-to-cover it would take me years to do it ; but that’s neither here nor there . I started with the ‘ Hateful Things ‘ essay . That writer’s work was a tad more polished than my previous post ( ! ) , but she and I are , more or less , on the same track with the hate concept .

Joe and I used to teach with a quirky guy named Reynold , who was Assistant Principal at the school and , by the way , my mentor teacher . Reynold once announced at a faculty meeting that he was one of the great minds of the century . He let a short pause go by . Then he finished with : ” ……of the 15th Century “. (Reynold was a little old fashioned . A bit rigid. There’s a lot to unpack there , as they say ; but I’ll let that go . We won’t get to that later .)

My next post will be ‘ An Apology to Possums ‘ ( No it won’t . Possums , as far as I know , can’t read .) Anyone else insulted by my hating them in the post will have to wait a few months until I finish ‘The Art of the Personal Essay’ . ( And to think : I could’ve just taken the course ! ) When I finish reading that collection I might just get around to addressing my other various mentioned hates . Time will tell .

Well , you’ve slogged through another meandering post about something febrile . ( But febrile is definitely the wrong word . I can’t come up with a more appropriate one . I hate that ! )

Animals don’t hate. And we’re supposed to be better than them —–Elvis Presley said that .