A large number of us hit up a tour of the Old Jameson Distillery yesterday. Located in Dublin, it's where Jameson first produced its best-selling Irish whiskey. The functioning distillery is in Cork today, but that didn't mean the tour at the old place wasn't worth the €10 fee.

Our tour guide Niall led us through each stage of production of Jameson Whiskey as we moved through the museum. He was really informed and pretty aware of the fact that the distillery tour is actually just an advertisementand a chance to drink some whiskey. He was also really accomodating to our large American group, and he could even speak German, French and Portuguese.

The best part definitely came at the end, when we were given a sample of Jameson. I took mine straight, but you could also get it with cranberry juice, ginger ale, or Coke. As we got our samples, we gathered around a table to watch the whiskey taste testing. At the beginning of the tour, Niall picked 10 people, including three of our group, to do the testing at the end. The testers compared Jameson with Johnnie Walker scotch and Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey while Niall explained the differences in the production of all three whiskeys. He gave each of them a chance to name their favorite whiskey, and all of them but one picked the Jameson. The guy who picked Johnnie Walker was Irish, so go figure that one.

I went on the Jack Daniel's distillery tour a week and a half ago, and I will say that the Jameson tour was much better. Even though the whiskey isn't made in Dublin anymore, the tour was very informative and fun. Everyone in our group liked it as well--even those who had never had whiskey before.