St. Pat’s was Tuesday March 17 and again it was more subdued than most would have preferred it. The Irish pubs in my NYC neighborhood were packed, but this meant every heat lamped outdoor table and every distanced table permitted inside were full, as opposed to the green bedecked drunken fest we all know and love. I suspect this was similar across the country except in the few places which are fully open, maybe Florida, maybe Texas. So in order to compensate for our missed party opportunity I invited one of our regulasr, an expert herself in whiskey and spirits, to speak for us. Responsible for our NASA scientist surprise guest treat, she once again outdid herself and offered up an expert who hailed from Ireland, in the moment. We met at 8:00 pm EST and Susan Boyle Zoomed in with us as we started, which was midnight for her, and she graciously stayed with us for more than two wonderful hours.
Susan not only is an expert in Irish spirits and food, but a dramatist, an actor and a PhD candidate. Her joy and her enthusiasm was infectious. and her deep knowledge impressive She paired the storytelling of theater with that of booze, which most of us may not have otherwise connected. As I popped open a can of the stuff to get everyone in the mood of it all, she told us the story of Guinness, of the Irish harp drawing based on an ancient harp housed in a museum that Guinness patented requiring the country to find another harp to put on their money, she related the story of whiskey in Ireland and everywhere else, how the spirit was made and where, and what went into it. She digressed into theater and story and all things fun, and she suggested why the God of Wine Bacchus in Rome, called Dionysus in Greece, is also the God of Sex and the God of Theater, as all can change our perception and stir our emotions and override our reason. She shared that Ireland was responsible for creating the corkscrew and the glass wine bottle, and this love of enjoying wine well gave way to the beautiful glassmaking tradition of Waterford. She told us how the Irish monks, with time on their hands and fields in which to grow things, figured out how to make whiskey and spread the word, and also emigrated to France to become winemakers and export it back home since grapes wouldn’t grow in Ireland and wine was very popular in Ireland. She also told us about a newly popular spirit poitine that is the Irish everclear, their moonshine, which is super high in alcohol. Everyone, myself included, peppered her with questions and she had an answer for everything. We ended by talking about a fascinating academic project she did recently in London in which she replicated how the Egyptians made beer during the pyramid building times. She worked with a brewer she knew as well as a potter friend to make a pot similarly porous to that used by the Egyptians. She said evidence showed the ancient Egyptians used coriander, cumin and even pistachio to flavor their beer, and she did this as well. We asked how it was, and she said, “unsurprisingly it was delicious,” and the pot kept the beer remarkably cold. She said her colleagues were surprised by how good the beer was, but she wasn’t because “humans are same throughout time” and everyone likes good cold beer. We asked if it were lower in alcohol like some historic beers were in the UK, and she said no, the beer was about as strong as a Guinness. Someone posited that perhaps all the beer drinking while pyramid building explained the mystery of why the Bent Pyramid was bent, which was pretty funny. It was a great talk, festive and fun, and made up a little bit for our missed St. Pat’s Day.
