This nomadic journey is becoming crazier with every minute.
If travelling to the remote Rathlin Island – Northern Ireland’s only inhabited offshore Island, wasn’t enough, to see sunbathing seals and nesting puffins, I went on a pub crawl where there was only 1 pub.
What was my second only ever pub crawl, after the one in Madrid 15 years ago, is the first time I’ve written a blog post with food or drink being the main topic. And it is probably the last.
So it’s a Pub Crawl on Rathlin Island, an island I doubt any of you had even heard of before unless you are from Northern Ireland, though I will be mentioning two events on my blog post about backpacking Rathlin Island, that are connected to Rathlin Island which I hope you have heard of, which may be leaving you with a smile before you rush off to Google it for yourselves.
So this is my ‘pub crawl’. A pub crawl with just 1 pub, and the bar at the Manor House Hotel, McCuaig’s Bar takes all the glory:
1. McCuaig’s Bar
With just one bar in town to choose from, it wasn’t a crawl from pub to pub, but it could have been a ‘crawl home’ had I had all the beers and whiskey I drank in there, in one session.
Knowing I had 2 nights on the island, I paced myself. But in hindsight, may I should have gone for broke and made my stay a little more interesting.
On the first afternoon, I mooched around and popped in for a quick pint. I had a Smithwicks which is an Irish Ale.
Smithwick’s brewery was founded in Kilkenny in 1710 by John Smithwick. Run by the Smithwick family of Kilkenny until 1965, when Guinness acquired it. It is now part of Diageo, which also owned Bushmills for a time.
The Kilkenny brewery shut down in 2013. Production of all Smithwick’s and Kilkenny branded beers moved to Dublin.
McCuaig’s have Magners, Guinness, Rockshore, Carlsberg and Harp on tap, as well as the Smithwicks.
It was the first time to try a Smithwicks. Of course, it’s a matter of preference but I do prefer a Kilkenny or Caffreys.
And of course, they have the usual selection of bottled beers and Irish whiskeys and Scottish whiskies.
So I tried a Jameson. I had the popular Triple Distilled Blended Irish Whiskey. And I sipped it slowly, not drinking like a gringo (a private joke between me and Miss CDMX).
The barman told me it’s a sweet whiskey which appeals more to the American market.
In the evening, I went back and had a Guinness, which was once again, poured to perfection.
The next day, after my excursion to the RSPB Rathlin West Light Seabird Centre, I had taken the minibus there and walked the 4½ miles back so I was in need of some liquid refreshment.
I had another Guinness and a Powers with a glass of water on the side.
Powers is a ‘single pot whiskey’ (A style of Irish whiskey made from a mixed mash of malted and unmalted barley which is distilled in a single pot) and was the first whiskey in Ireland to be bottled.
2. Manor House Bar
After walking to the East Lighthouse and back, another Guinness was in order. Then with my evening meal at the Manor House which had a small bar, though not enough to warrant it being called a pub, with non-functioning draft beers luring me into a false sense of enlightenment. I drank a Corona hecho en México, ‘La Cerveza Mas Fina’.
