And in case you’re not an Irish speaker, a very happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all!

The flag of the Four Provinces of Ireland

I don’t suppose I could have gotten away with not making a post today, although I wasn’t particularly planning one. I did get a big of a nudge while talking to an Irish cow-orker this morning (and when another cow-orker passed us, he said, “You two shouldn’t even be allowed to talk to each other today … critical mass!”), while we chatted about “Father Ted” and shouted “FECK!” and “ARSE!” and “DRINK!” to each other, as is our wont.

Those of you who’ve seen my previous years’ St. Patrick’s Day posts will remember my own rules for the day:

1. NO GREEN BEER. I really shouldn’t even have to explain that.

I remember back in gradual school my mentor and favorite teacher Ian Conner, a native Glaswegian, overheard one of my fellow students on St. Patrick’s Day say that he was planning to spend the evening going to a local bar to drink green beer. “Is that what St. Patrick’s Day means to you?” asked Ian. “That’s not what St. Patrick’s Day means to me. What St. Patrick’s Day means to be is starting at noon at the closet Irish pub to where you live, having some whiskey, then moving on to the next one, having another whiskey, and continuing thusly throughout the day!” One of many thousands of anecdotes which add up to a truly great teacher.

2. Wear the green, but keep it subtle. I find that Irish people don’t particularly wear a lot of green anyway — one fun game I’ve played in Dublin with my Irish friends is “Spot the Yank,” terribly easy when there are so many Americans festooned in bright fluorescent kelly green, especially green mesh-back baseball caps with a shamrock and the word “IRELAND” on the front, plus the Bermuda shorts of course. Today my socks are a light forest green, and that’s perfectly nice.

Of course, given the Irish flag has green, white and orange (representing the nationalist tradition, the Orange Protestant tradition and the hope for peace between them), you could wear a bit of each. Then again, Ian continued his story … “On St. Patrick’s Day, my grandfather — a fierce adherent to the Church of Scotland — used to pin orange ribbons to his clothing and go through the Catholic sections of town, shouting anti-Papist slogans.” No need to go quite that far.

A clever, amusing t-shirt will do fine too. I have a few from a shop in Spiddal, Co. Galway called An Spáilpín Fánach featuring clever or witty sayings in Irish (I like the one I have that says, “Ná cuir céist orm — níl fhois agam!” or, “Don’t ask me, I don’t know!”) and some not-so-clever (such as the ubiquitous “Póg mo thóin”). I’ve seen a few other good ones around — “I ♥ Irish boys” is an old favorite, “Craic dealer” made me laugh, and perhaps the best one ever is the one that said, in a rather recognizeable typeface and layout …

(Heh.)

3. Stay out of Irish pubs/bars. Seriously. Find a great Irish bar and go any other day of the year. On St. Patrick’s Day it’s strictly amateur hour, and unless you like being packed like sardines in green beer, drunk collge students, the Dropkick feckin’ Murphys and lots of police sobriety checkpoints there and back, stay home. Well, unless you’re actually in Ireland, where avoiding an Irish pub might be a bit more difficult.

4. Drink Irish whiskey. It is good. It is very good. And the whole “Catholic whiskey / Protestant whiskey” thing is bullshit — don’t buy into it. Nobody in Ireland would. If you like Bushmills (and I do, especially their single malts and aged expressions like the 16- and 21-year), then do so! Black Bush is lovely stuff and quite affordable.

My own preference goes toward the 12-year expressions of John Powers and Jameson’s, plus Tullamore Dew, all good for sipping or mixing. I also adore Redbreast, the only pure pot still Irish whiskey we’re getting over here now, and I’ve recently fallen in love with Tyrconnell Single Malt, one of the many wonderful products of the Cooley Distillery in Co. Louth, the only truly independent Irish whiskey distillery (Midleton in Cork is owned by Pernod-Ricard, and Bushmills by Diageo). The Tyrconnell line also includes whiskies finished in sherry, madeira and port barrels — I’ve only had one of them so far, but it was wonderful, a great balance between maltiness and strawberry-fruit sweetness.

I’m also a fan of Kilbeggan, another Cooley product. Wesly and I visited the Old Kilbeggan distillery about six years ago and enjoyed seeing the place. In ’07 the folks at Cooley actually got working pot stills going at Kilbeggan again, with the plan to actually have them produce whiskey again after 54 years. Kilbeggan’s lovely, with notes of raisins and vanilla. Interesting tidbit — from 1843 until its closure in 1954 the distillery was called Locke’s, after the man who purchased it and whose family ran it for over a century. His name will be familiar to those of us who are “Lost” fans … John Locke. (As far as I know, that John Locke’s body is not currently inhabited by a smoke monster.) Locke’s 8-year single malt is still produced by Cooley — it’s a blended single malt, which does include a bit of peated whiskey, so actually Locke’s has a touch of the smoke monster after all.

5. Drink Irish whiskey cocktails. We’ll be doing numbers 4 and 5 tonight, at home.

Here are the 10 Irish whiskey-based cocktails currently in my list; doubtless you can find more. I’m favoring the Tipperary tonight, I think; Gaz Regan wrote about it again today in the San Francisco Chronicle.

A few Irish whiskey cocktails to peruse

Bushmills in the Afternoon
Dubliner
Irish (Channel) Coffee
Irish Whiskey Toddy
James Joyce Cocktail
St. Dominic’s Preview
The Swell Season
Tipperary
Weeski

6. Listen to Irish music. You’re always good with The Pogues (even though most of them aren’t from Ireland), but your best bet are the modern classics of Planxty and The Bothy Band. Go on iTunes or eMusic and get some now if you haven’t already. You’ll thank me later.

And have a happy and safe, snake-free St. Patrick’s Day!

I’ve been a fan of The Frames for a long time (since seeing them in Ireland before their first album came out), and naturally followed that into Glen Hansard’s solo performances and his collaboration with Czech pianist and singer Markéta Irglová as The Swell Season. You may remember they won that Best Original Song Oscar last year, right? First time a song has actually deserved it in years.

My friend Steve was reviewing the show for Variety and kindly offered to bring me as his plus-one (read his review here). After several uncertain moments regarding misplaced will-call tickets that made me worry we’d miss the show entirely, we finally got in the door thanks to a very nice and helpful manager at the theatre, only having missed about half of Josh Ritter‘s wonderful opening set. That was a nice surprise; I didn’t know he’d be playing support until we got there. If you haven’t heard of him I highly recommend you check him out — he’s an Idaho-born singer and songwriter in the folk and folk-rock vein, lesser-known here but huge in Ireland, mostly thanks to Glen having spotted him early on and championed his work.

When The Swell Season finally took the stage it’s as if we got three shows in one — Glen and Markéta began solo, as their previous performances had been, and then were joined by The Frames as a backup band. For one large part of the set we were treated to Glen performing solo (including a great rendition of Van the Man’s “Astral Weeks,” which I’ve heard him do before and could hear him do again a hundred times) — we could have all been on Grafton Street.

Markéta did get to take a few turns on lead vocals (including one with a Czech singer whose name escapes me), and although her piano playing is a strong part of the band’s sound I do agree with Steve’s observation that it’s a bit of an uneven musical partnership. Glen’s definitely way out front, with Markéta sometimes feeling like a sideman. She’s a wonderfully talented musician but the force of her personality is no match for Glen’s — almost nobody’s is, really. He’s a powerhouse, and I agree with Damien Dempsey’s comment that Glen’s the most passionate singer he’s ever seen.

Glen had mentioned that thanks to someone giving him the complete DVD box set of “Freaks and Geeks” he had become a huge fan (yay!), and to top that off got a chance to meet Jason Segal at a gig. They remained in touch and became friends, and we got an extra-special L.A. treat when Jason came on stage, sat at the piano and performed his own composition — a deeply moving, heartfelt and introspective song about using his celebrity status to coax a willing female Swell Season fan from the audience into the sack. I’m pretty sure this video was shot by the person sitting right in front of me.

And yep, apparently that’s really his phone number.

The show ended on a pitch-perfect note, with Glen bringing up The Clancy Brothers and noting that Liam Clancy is the only one left alive. He did a Clancy Brothers song for us, a traditional number called “The Parting Glass” that I actually first learned from the singing of The Voice Squad. It’s a longtime favorite and one that never fails to get the tears welling up.

Last year when Glen and Mar won their Oscar I came up with a cocktail in their honor, one that included both Irish and Czech ingredients. Wes and I revisited it the other night, and it’s still a keeper, I think. Yet another Manhattan variation, but it works and it’s tasty.

THE SWELL SEASON COCKTAIL

2 ounces blended Irish whiskey.
1/2 ounce Becherovka.
1/2 ounce Punt E Mes.
1 dash Angostura bitters.
Lemon peel.

Combine with ice, stir for at least 20 seconds and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Express the oil from the lemon peel and add as garnish.

For the Irish whiskey, I recommend Jameson’s or Tullamore Dew, especially the 12-year-old varieties. Otherwise, your favorite blended Irish will do nicely.

Finally, check out this terrific video clip Mary sent me — it’s from a Swell Season concert in Houston. Glen likes to have people sing along, and he’ll usually do a little run-through of the parts that require audience singing. He heard a voice in the crowd that he liked so much he invited her on stage to sing it with them.

Wow. I wanna go up on stage and sing with The Swell Season! I guess I’d better start practicing.

While foraging for Irish whiskey cocktails for St. Patrick’s Day, I got an emil from GreggO this morning about this drink, created by our pal Jackson Cannon at Boston’s Eastern Standard. This looks fantastic, and I’ll bet it’d be super deadly with Irish brown bread.

Bushmills in the Afternoon
Adapted from Jackson Cannon, Eastern Standard, Boston)

1/2 slice (about 3/4-inch thick) of artisanal wheat bread or Irish brown bread.
2 ounces Bushmills Irish whiskey.
1 egg.
1/2 ounce honey syrup (1 part honey dissolved in 1 part warm water).
1/2 ounce fresh orange juice.
Dash of Regans’ Orange Bitters No. 6 (or other orange bitters).
Freshly grated cinnamon, for garnish.

In a mixing glass, muddle the bread with the whiskey for 1 minute, then pass the mixture through a tea strainer into a cocktail shaker, pressing on the bread to extract all of the whiskey (you should get about 1-1/2 ounces). Add the egg, honey syrup, orange juice and bitters and shake vigorously for 30 seconds. Fill the shaker with ice and shake vigorously for 30 seconds to 1 minute longer, until the drink is frothy and well-chilled. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a small pinch of freshly grated cinnamon.

Oh Jaysis … this was really, really feckin’ good.

While foraging for Irish whiskey cocktails for St. Patrick’s Day, I came across this one I had forgotten about, an original by Dave Wondrich, appearing in his book Killer Cocktails:

Weeski

2 ounces Irish whiskey.
1 ounce Lillet blanc.
1 teaspoon Cointreau.
2 dashes orange bitters.

Stir and strain, lemon twist.

This follows Dave’s formula for creating new cocktails from the various contents of your bar. It doesn’t always work, but it works most of the time, sometimes really well.

The basic recipe template is:

2 ounces base spirit (whiskey, rum, tequila, gin, genever, brandy, whatever), 1 ounce aromatized wine (vermouth, port, sherry, quinquina, Lillet, Dubonnet, etc.), 1 teaspoon/barspoon liqueur, and 1-2 dashes bitters. Start digging in your liquor cabinet and give it a try sometime.

We’ve got an inadvertent theme going this week — whiskey-based cocktails that are closely related to one another and yet very distinctly flavored.

We were back to Irish whiskey last night with this entry from Gary Regan’s The Joy of Mixology. Lovely drink, and a very close cousin (if not sibling) of my own St. Dominic’s Preview. The whiskey was once again Tullamore Dew, the bitters Regans’, and the vermouth Martini & Rossi.

The recipe specified a garnish of a green maraschino cherry, which visually is in keeping with the theme of this cocktail. Unfortunately green maraschino cherries are macerated in a mint syrup and taste absolutely vile, and fortunately we didn’t have any. A brandied one was substituted.

Dubliner

2 ounces Irish whiskey.
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/2 ounce Grand Marnier.
3 dashes orange bitters.

Stir with ice for no less than 30 seconds; strain into a cocktail glass.
Cherry garnish optional.

Up the Dubs! (Well, cocktail-wise, anyway. If I cared about such things I’d be a Galway man. Actually, on the rare opportunities I get to do so I love watching hurling; it’s really exciting.)

Hmm … do I need to invent a cocktail called “The Galwegian”?