With St. Patrick’s day marking the calendar, what would be more appropriate to feature than something originating in Ireland, and the integral ingredient used in the famous Irish Coffee?

Whisky, in general, refers to a broad category of alcoholic beverages that are distilled from fermented grain mash and aged in wooden casks (generally oak). A popular legend is that St Patrick introduced distillation to Ireland and Britain, but it is also possible that the distillation process was actually discovered in Ireland.

Indeed, the first written record of whisky comes from 1405 in Ireland. Whisky derives from the Gaelic word for “water” and is called “uisce beatha” in Irish, meaning “Water of Life”. In order to differentiate Dublin whiskey from other whiskies, the Dublin distilleries adopted the spelling “whiskey” (which is why you will see here the spelling varies).

In the late Victorian era, Irish whiskey was the world’s whiskey of choice, and Dublin whiskeys were regarded as the grandest of all. There are, however, different types of whiskies worldwide: Scotch (from Scotland), Canadian, American, Welsh, and even Japanese and Indian varieties, but since we are celebrating St Patty day, let’s focus for a moment on the Irish spirit.

Although it is similar to Scotch in many ways, Irish whiskey is distilled three times rather than only twice. Another way Irish whiskey differs is that peat is almost never used in the malting process, as with Scotch. Irish whiskeys must be aged in wooden casks for a period of not less than three years. There are several types of whiskey common to Ireland: Single Malt, Single Grain, Pure Pot Still and Blended Whiskey.

Whisky, overall, is comprised of different grains – and therefore ingredients - used for different varieties of the spirit (including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and maize). Nevertheless, whisky itself can be used as an ingredient in many culinary recipies and beverages.

The aforementioned legendary Irish Coffee is a delectable cocktail consisting of hot coffee, Irish whiskey, and sugar, stirred, then topped with a floating layer of thick cream. But the Irish are not, by far, the only nationality to enjoy whisky. The Americans used their most famous whisky, Jack Daniels, to produce the Lynchberg Lemonade as well as Jack Daniels BBQ Sauce. In fact, Americans seem to love whisky in their sauce, something exemplified by New Orleans Bread Pudding and Whiskey Sauce.Which brings us to food.

For starters, try Crab Whiskey Soup. Then, for tempting entrees, stir in some whisky and sour cream into Pork Medallions or combine whisky, bacon, mustard, and rosemary to make a rich and flavourful pan-fried beef dish. The most common American whisky is Bourbon (made from at least 51 per cent corn), which is renown for creating gastronomic favourites such as Bourbon Glazed Ham and Orange Braised Bourbon Chicken.

When it comes to desserts, Bourbon Pecan Cake will make a decandent finish to any meal. But, if your celebrating St Patrick’s Day all the way, Irish Whiskey cake is the way to go for the most intoxicating finale!

Recipies from: www.epicurean.com & www.allrecipies.com

More than 700 people attended the Bahrain Irish Society’s St Patrick’s Day Ball last night at the Gulf Hotel’s Gulf International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The main sponsor was Aer Rianta International while other sponsors included Gulf Air, Mercury, Kentz, Tourism Island, Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland - Medical University, Bahrain Duty Free, Irish Development International and African and Eastern.

The line-up of entertainment for the annual show included performances by the Irish dance group Desert Dance, Saudi-based Irish Band Get Reel and popular Irish band Moog 69, who were flown in from Ireland by Gulf Air. Moog 69 featured Niamh Collins on lead vocals, Eamo Griffin on bass and vocals, Mark Levins on guitar and vocals, keyboardist and vocalist Keith Lawless and drummer Rory Doyle. The band will also be performing at JJ’s at the Al Bustan Hotel tomorrow and on Monday, at the Gaelic Games weekend festival.

It is billed as a fun-filled weekend of fun, sport, music and festivities celebrating Irish culture in particular and Gaelic culture in general. The event is being organised by the Bahrain Irish Society and JJ’s. Doors open at 9pm with free entry on both nights. Contact Tony on 36704414 for more information about the events at JJ’s.

Meanwhile, tickets are still available for the Irish Dinner Dance at the Dilmun Club in Saar on Sunday. Tickets are priced at BD12 for members and BD16 for guests and doors open at 7.30pm on the night. Contact the Dilmun Club on 17690926.

Visit www.bahrainirishsociety.com for more information.

If you are looking for a fun and easy recipe to do with the kids, try these deliciously simple St. Patrick’s Day Cookie Pops. The kids will smile and giggle while making these treats, and will have something fun to give to family, friends, and classmates!

Ingredients >
20 vanilla wafer cookies
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 12-ounce bag white chocolate chips
green and yellow gumdrops
green Dots
green and yellow Nerd candies
Cake decorating writer gel in green, yellow, red, orange, and black
1 tube of green cake decorator frosting with tip green and yellow
decorator sugar green food coloring ice cream or lollipop sticks
wax paper or paper plates

Instructions >
Spread peanut butter onto the flat side of the cookies. Place an ice cream stick into the peanut butter on half the cookies. Top with another cookie so the stick is sandwiched between the two cookies.
Melt chocolate chips in the microwave, one minute, then in 20 second increments, stirring until smooth. Before melting, separate the white chips into two bowls. After melting, add a few drops of green food coloring to one of the bowls of white chips to make green chocolate.
Dip cookie pops in the melted chips, covering completely. Sprinkle with green and yellow sugar, and place or stand on waxed paper or paper plates. Put in refrigerator to chill.

Fun Variations >
Leprechaun > After coating with white chocolate, dip top of pop into green sugar. Slice two yellow gumdrops to make beard. Allow to dry on wax paper. Use black and red decorator gel for eyes and mouth, and for trim on hat.
Rainbow with Pot of Gold > After coating with white chocolate, cut a green Dot in half lengthwise, adhere to chocolate. Before chocolate has a chance to dry, place 3-5 yellow candy Nerds “in” pot. Create a rainbow with various colored decorator gel.
Shamrock > After coating with white chocolate, sprinkle with yellow decorator sugar, then draw on a shamrock using green cake decorator icing.
Four Leaf Clover > After coating with green chocolate, use green sliced gumdrops to create clover leaves. Slice a small strip out of remaining gumdrop for stem. Use a green candy Nerd for the center of the clover.

Note > Another variation is to use vanilla or chocolate frosting instead of peanut butter for the filling. These can also be made without sticks. Use one stick to be able to dip the cookies in chocolate and roll in sprinkles, then remove the stick and put on wax paper or paper plates, then chill.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day. While most people celebrate the holiday by going to their local Irish pub, or anywhere they serve green beer, there are many other ways to commemorate the day. Going to a bar and raising a glass, or two, is one way to get festive, but if you aren’t a beer drinker or don’t like crowded bars, then we’ve got a few other ideas for you to observe this St. Patty’s Day.

The Origins of St. Patrick’s Day > St. Patrick’s Day honors St. Patrick, the man who is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and believed to have driven the snakes out of the country. The day is based on the original Christian saint’s feast day and is also the day thought to be the date of St. Patrick’s death. In 1737, Irish immigrants in the United States started publicly observing this day as a holiday in Boston and in 1766, held the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City.

  Green Beer > A couple centuries later, St. Patrick’s Day has evolved from a way of honoring a saint, to an excuse to drink all day long, which is probably why everyone wants to be Irish on March 17. If you enjoy your beer green and your bars crowed, then head out to your local pub and throw a few back. Even bars that aren’t considered Irish get in on the act so you can celebrate anywhere. Of course, it’s more fun at a pub, where there are generally bag pipers, Irish music, corned beef, cabbage and Irish stew.

Everyone Loves a Parade > Many cities hold festive parades including the above mentioned Boston and New York, as well as other cities across the country, such as San Diego, San Francisco and Chicago. Just check the dates, as many of the parades are held the weekend before or at other times during the month, and enjoy marching bands, bag pipers, floats and probably some green beer.

Fun Runs and Walks > Get some exercise in the name of St. Patrick by running through the streets of your town while crowds gather in green to cheer you on. For example, Baltimore, Maryland will hold a Shamrock 5k run on March 16, as will St. Paul, Minnesota where you can participate in a 5K, 8K or youth run, and in St. Louis, Missouri a five mile run is scheduled where over 7,000 participants are expected on the 15th.

Get to Stepping > Make like Michael Flatley and channel your inner Lord of the Dance by signing up for an Irish dance class. There’s no better time to learn how to step-dance then on St. Patrick’s day (or any time in March really) and there are many studios that offer lessons throughout the country.

Irish Festivals > Celebrate your Irish roots by going to an Irish Festival. With St. Patrick’s Day looming, many areas hold festivals and fairs throughout the month of March. Here you’ll experience bag pipers, Irish music, old world athletic competitions, dancers and of course traditional Irish fare.

Visit the Motherland > Why not celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by experiencing the real thing? See how authentic Irishmen (and women) honor the day first hand by taking that long awaited trip to Ireland.

Ireland on Celluloid > Instead of heading out and fighting the crowds at the local pub, why not stay in? Grab some Guinness, make some Irish stew and watch a film to go along with the day.  Just to name a couple, there’s the classic cheesy horror flick, “Leprechaun,” the St. Patrick inspired, “Snakes on a Plane” where Samuel Jackson drives snakes off the…well…plane and “Waking Ned Divine,” a sweet little film about a resident in an Irish town winning the lottery.

Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day > March 17 is a great day to be, or pretend to be Irish, and while it’s fun to head out to a bar, it doesn’t have to be all about drinking. Find different ways to celebrate your Celtic roots and create your own traditions in the process.

St Patrick’s Day is celebrated each year on 17 March and it is a national holiday in Ireland to honor one of the country’s most famous heroes. With more than 60 million people worldwide claiming Irish ancestry including the 4.1 million citizens of Ireland St. Patrick’s Day is truly a global celebration.

Whether it is a festive celebration with lavish parades such as those in Singapore and the United States, or the “honorary Irishmen” of Russia or Spain who flock to their local Irish pub, one element of the celebration remains constant and authentically Irish: Guinness Draught, Ireland’s best-selling stout and most recognizable export. Much like St. Patrick’s Day itself, Guinness is rich in Irish history and tradition and is enjoyed worldwide.

“St. Patrick’s Day and Guinness are widely recognised around the world as Irish icons,” said John Hudson, Guinness Master Brewer. “There’s no better way to celebrate being the Irish heritage than by enjoying a pint of Guinness, responsibly, on St. Patrick’s Day.”

Looking for a place to celebrate St Patrick’s Day in Perth? Here are the hot spots:

SUNDAY > Fremantle - Princess May Park, Adelaide St, festival with bands, stalls, dancers, petting zoo and rides (1pm to 5pm).

MONDAY > Northbridge - The Shed, Aberdeen St, breakfast and bands from 8am. Rosie O’Grady’s, James St, street party, live bands inside and out from 10am.

Perth - Durty Nelly’s Irish Pub, Shafto Lane, breakfast and bands from 7am.

Burswood - Paddy Hannan’s, Great Eastern Highway, live entertainment and radio broadcasts.

Leederville - Fibber McGee’s, Newcastle St, traditional harpist and music from 11am. JB O’Reilly’s, Cambridge St, breakfast, lunch and bands from 7am.

Subiaco - Paddy Maguire’s Pub, Barker Rd, breakfast and bands from 7am.

Fremantle - Clancy’s Fish Pub, Cantonment St, live music and Guinness from 12pm. Rosie O’Grady’s, William St, Irish bands and dancers from 10am.

Further afield >
Mandurah - Murphy’s Irish Pub, Mandurah Tce, lunch and entertainment from 11am.

Geraldton - John Gilroy’s Irish Bar at the Freemason’s Hotel, Marine Tce, 11am to 12am.

As with many holidays, the legend often eclipses the truth, and that’s certainly true of St. Patrick’s Day, and of the man after whom the holiday was named. The man who, legend has it, drove the venomous snakes out of Ireland with his shillelagh.

Even so, the true story of St. Patrick is certainly the stuff of legends. Born to a wealthy British family who owned a villa in what is now Wales in the 4th century AD, St. Patrick, who was then called Maewyn Succat, was kidnapped by pirates at the age of 16 and sold into slavery in Ireland. After six years of hard labour, he managed to escape, making his way to France, where he studied under St. Germain and adopted the name Patrick.

  But the “voice of the Irish” as he called it, was too strong, and he eventually returned to Ireland, where he began converting many of the Gaelic Irish to Christianity. To explain the difficult concept of the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three entities existing as one, to the Irish, St. Patrick employed a visual aid, a three-leaf shamrock. Hence the shamrock is an appropriate symbol of St. Patrick’s Day, though it somehow morphed into a four-leaf clover.

St. Patrick also frequently found himself at odds with the Celtic Druids, who saw him as a threat to their authority and repeatedly imprisoned him. But given the irrepressibility of great spirits, St. Patrick always managed to escape and return to his mission.

And St. Patrick’s Day should be associated more with great spirits than with, well, spirits such as green beer. Indeed, the old Irish word craic refers to a spirited affair, to the fun, enjoyment, abandonment and lighthearted mischief that is often, though not necessarily, associated with drinking.

Ireland has unquestionably given us more than its fair share of great spirits, including James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney, an astonishing output for a small country at the edge of Europe.

But the spirit that is St. Patrick’s Day now extends far beyond the borders of this small country. In addition to Ireland, two jurisdictions recognize St. Patrick’s Day as an official holiday, Canada’s very own Newfoundland and Labrador, and the island nation of Montserrat. St. Patrick’s Day is now celebrated across the world, from Moscow, to Munich, to Montevideo, Uruguay. Indeed, the first St. Patrick’s Day parade was held, not in Ireland, but in the U.S., in the 18th century.

The popularity of the holiday should come as no surprise since it provides many people with an opportunity to wear a four-leaf clover and hoist a mug of green beer, or to celebrate their Irish heritage. But for those interested in separating the truth from the legend, St. Patrick’s Day also represents the power of the human spirit to overcome any obstacles the world places in its way.