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Poitin, history of Irish drink Poteen
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Poitin, history of Irish drink Poteen Sceala Irish Craic Forum Irish Message |
jodonnell
Sceala Philosopher
Location: NYC
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| Sceala Irish Craic Forum Discussion:
Poitin, history of Irish drink Poteen
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Poitin or Poteen literally means small pot
it refers to Whiskey brewed in a small pot!
Like the Hillbillys of America, the Irish made their own distilled beverage.
IRISH MOUNTAIN MEN BREWED MOUNTAIN TAY
Connemara
Really cool video showing the history of Poitin making in Ireland, also showing that Whiskey is Irish not Scottish.
Ireland had whiskey first and the word is from Irish language.
Poitin or Poteen is an Irish moonshine and can also refer to Irish Whiskey. The native Irish drink has been anglicized into many forms, such as potcheen, potchin, putcheen or formerly potheen and even putcheen. The term is a diminutive of the word pota 'a pot', derived from Poitin being traditionally distilled in a small pot.
The home brew of Poitin is often very strong and some market labels are as strong as 90% volume (180 proof). Made from a brew consisting mainly of barley, it has a distinctive dry and grainy flavor with a delicate aftertaste that becomes sweeter as it develops. Some rural Irish people still pour it on wounds and sores for disinfectant properties it is believed to have, which is plausible due to its high alcohol content. This legendary Irish moonshine was outlawed in 1760 and has only recently been legalized for consumption again in Ireland, though legal production for export has been allowed for quite some time. It is now available in collectors' off licences. However, 'legal versions' of poit�n are of a greatly reduced volume, and are not seen as 'the real thing'.
Musical references to poitin
+ The traditional Irish folk song "The Hills of Connemara" is about poitin.
+ Poitin is mentioned in the traditional Irish folk song "The Rare Auld Mountain Dew"
+ Poit�n is also mentioned (along with Laudanum) in the song "The Snake With Eyes Of Garnet" by Shane MacGowan (formerly of The Pogues) on his 1994 album, The Snake.
+ The song Mc Illhatton written by Bobby Sands is about an outlaw that distills Poit�n.
+ Poitin is a potent literary trope in Irish poetry and prose of the nineteenth century. The Irish critic Sin�ad Sturgeon has demonstrated how the contested legality of the substance became a crucial theme running through the works of Maria Edgeworth and William Carlton.
Poitin in the Cinema
The first feature film to be made entirely in the Irish Language was called "Poit�n" (1979). The story involves an illegal distiller, his two agents, and his daughter in the remote west of Ireland, Connemara. The film was made by Bob Quinn and was the first film to receive a grant from the Arts Council of Ireland. Potin starred Cyril Cusack as a moonshiner in rural Conamara, living in an isolated cottage with his adult daughter. Two local degenerates, played by Donal McCann and Niall Toibin, terrorize the old moonshiner for his contraband liquor, threatening to kill him and rape his daughter, until the moonshiner outwits them. The film first aired to the Irish public on RTE on Saint Patrick's Day in 1979 and caused a national outrage. Taken by many as a direct insult to the idealized Western Irish identity, particularly pointing to the "spud fight" scene in the film, criticism echoed the response to John Millington Synge's stageplay "The Playboy of the Western World" (the "Playboy Riots") some seventy years earlier and the reaction to Flann O'Brien's Irish language novel "An B�al Bocht" some forty years prior, both of which also played on Irish stereotypes, of which Irish nationalists are sensitive.
Poitin, history of Irish drink Poteen
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