WHEN YOU’RE A WRITER and you don’t have a lot of funding going on  because you spend your earnings on poetry workshops in Vancouver ’cause you’re such a complete moron you decided to become a writer, you have to drown your poor life choices, and you have to drown those suckers cheap.

Cheap, however, doesn’t have to mean mouthwash, because, after all, you want to swallow, not spit your swill. So your poison’s gotta be some kind o’ palatably affordable liquor. Amirite? I’m always right. So. Yeah.

Which leads us down the rocky road to Irish whiskey. Don’t get me wrong, all ye of discerning tastes — there are some very fine, very pricey Irish whiskeys going on, and my parents loved drinking that single malt shit back when they had money in the ’70s.

But me, I’m a Jameson kind of gal. Jamie’s rich and delicious and sweet, also it’s inexpensive (especially in blessed live-free-or-die New Hampshire where it’s like four dollars a hillbilly jugful), and if you pour it over a few ice cubs it’ll keep you running nice and easy for a good while. Especially if you’re a cheap, drinks alone date like moi. 

Doesn’t this look delicious? 

WHAT IS IRISH WHISKEY?

• It’s gotta be made (i.e: distilled and aged) in Ireland 
• It’s gotta be made from Irish grain
• It’s gotta be at least three years old

WHO’S BREWING THAT STUFF UP?

• New Midleton Distillery: They’ve got the Jamesons, Powers, Paddy, Midleton, Redbreast + more
• Old Bushmills Distillery: You know these guys. They’ve got all Old Bushmills, Black Bush, 1608, Bushmills 10-, 12- and 16- as well as the 21-year-old single malts 
• Cooley Distillery: Connemara, Michael Collins, Tyrconnell, and a bunch more
• Kilbeggan Distillery: These guys are brand new at the whiskey game — they just opened up shop in 2007
• Ireland’s also got some sweet indie whiskey brands, like Tullamore Dew (and no, indie doesn’t mean moonshine. Unless you want it to.)