Right so, let's start at the beginning, way back in the summer of 1970, when I was born on 8/8 which is thankfully the same date on either side of the Atlantic! Yep, 51 as I write this and looking back at the fun journey so far! I was born in Dublin and raised in the village of Kilternan, right there on the Dublin/Wicklow border.

Back then it was the country with the 44 bus to Enniskerry running from Hawkins St. whenever it felt like it. I never realized how lucky I was to grow up in rural suburbia until I got older and I look back at my childhood with many very fond memories. 

Kilternan used to be a backwater on the road to Wicklow but fast-forward to today and it has its own junction on the M50 motorway. While you'd drive through it in a couple of minutes I never realized how much there was in Kilternan until I took the time to take stock of it. Golf tops the list with the County Council building a 9-holer on part of the dump in the mid-80s. And we were surrounded by Pitch & Putt courses with half a dozen within a 20-minute cycle of the family home. Those short courses are one of the reasons I'm deadly close to the green today but don't ever expect me to win the longest drive contest! 

In addition to golf, there was football (soccer) at the famed Wayside Celtic AFC where in the 80's it was quite possibly the only football club for miles with showers in the clubhouse which were perfect for washing off the layer upon layer of mud that was part of what felt like every match and training session.

And there was rugby too, at Palmerston RFC, now DLSP, and I have fond memories of playing on teams there with lads from all over south Dublin and north Wicklow and we definitely had the "craic" both on and off the field. 

I used to roam the hills behind the house during the summers with the neighbor kids and we'd build castles and forts amongst the ferns on those long, bright summer evenings that Ireland's northern latitude enjoys. Later on, in my teenage years, the hills and rivers of Wicklow would suck me in with weekend after weekend spent hiking, cycling, or canoeing in the beautiful Garden of Ireland. 

Kilternan is one of those villages in Ireland where there are two churches, one Catholic, and the other Church of Ireland - the Blue and the Grey - as we called them. I grew up behind the Grey Church but went to primary (elementary) school at the school attached to the Blue Church (where I made my First Holy) which meant that on the days that I'd walk home from school I'd have to pass Mr. Begley's shop and the Golden Ball pub... 

There was so much more to Kilternan too. Ireland's only dry ski slope, the disused Lead Mines, the ruins of the church of Saint Tiernan (from which the village gets its name,) an ancient Dolmen burial site, the ruins of a monastery of some sort, Fox's Dairy who would deliver our milk in little plastic pouches, the famed Kilternan Country Market, Boyle's pig farm, the Kilternan Garden Centre, Ambrose Glass Motors, and the Post Office where you'd go to see how out of date the Mars Bars were...

My late teenage years started another chapter of exploration when the hostelries of the area, and beyond into Wicklow, were fair game for a Pint, or two! Back then I struggled with fizzy lager, Furstenburg, and the like, and always drank a Pint of Guinness with a dash of blackcurrant cordial in it. Guinness and Black it was called, sacrilege I know but it was a way to take that slightly bitter edge off a pint of Arthur's finest.

We were definitely spoiled for choice when it came to watering holes in and around Kilternan. The Golden Ball was the local, but we were regularly to be found in Johnnie Fox’s - up the hill in Glencullen, The Step Inn - down the road in Stepaside, The Blue Light - down the road and up the hill in Barnacullia.

I have vivid memories of Irish Whiskey at that time being the preserve of "old men '' and the choice was paltry by today's standards. By the late '80s as I turned 18 on 8/8/88 there were pretty much only four whiskeys that you'd see in every Irish Pub - Bushmills, Jameson, Paddy, and Powers. That was it, four whiskeys made at two distilleries. 

While the '70s and the '80s were dark times in Ireland, both with The Troubles and an economy beat down by punitive taxation, my folks valued travel and we were lucky enough to leave the island every year for a holiday.

In 1977 and 1979 we spent a month in west Florida with mum's parents who used to spend six months there every year (more on them some other time) and all through the '80s I got to spend time in Germany, England, France, Spain, Scotland amongst others on both Scout Summer Camps and family holidays.

These travels opened my eyes to the foods that existed beyond Ireland so it was no surprise that I headed to Culinary School (Cathal Brugha St, DIT now known as Technology University Dublin) when I had finished with a decent Leaving Cert from Blackrock College in 1988. The summer of '88 took me to Kilkenny where I was privileged to work at Langton's which at the time had won Ireland's Best Pub the previous three years, and this while the "lads" that I grew up where off on their Interrail jaunt across Europe that I missed out on!

In our Bar class, yes we had a bar class at college, we were regaled with stories about how "in the good ole days" there were countless distilleries in Ireland but as I said before a distillery culture was not part of the Ireland that I grew up in.

Back then the only wine we had on our dinner table was Blue, Black, or Golden (Blue Nun, Black Tower, Goldener Oktober) but an extra-curricular course at night during college got me hooked on wine and I became fascinated by it. In those days we actually got paid by the EU to go to college but like so many others I pulled pints to pay my way through college, most famously at the Silver Tassie, but in a few other places too.

Like most of my generation, I left Ireland for London after graduating college and took my first job at Harrods, in the Food Halls. It was like being in heaven for the foodie in me and I ended up in the Wine Dept. and was privileged to work with and learn under some of the icons of the Wine Industry. After a couple of years at Sainsbury’s, in retail and head office, I was lucky enough to win a Morrison Visa and I came to California to work harvest in the Santa Ynez Valley.

That was followed by another harvest, this time in New Zealand in 1995, and then another harvest at Firestone Vineyards in the autumn of 1995. I fell in love with California during that time and felt like it was where I was meant to be. But no...

I married for the first time in 1996, moved back to Ireland, then on to England, where both of the Nippers were born. In 2001 I took the big plunge and moved back to Ireland again and spent the next seven years working side-by-side with my Dad in the family business, Henry Aston's News & Deli on Baggot St. in Dublin.

As a result, both the Nippers and my folks have the most incredible relationship from those seven years and I am truly thankful for that. The “shop” was spitting distance from that trifecta of iconic D2 pubs - Toner's, Doheny & Nesbitts, and O'Donoghues - so I'll leave the rest to your imagination...

The Young Fella is now 24 and Lil Blondie is 22 and they're both making their way in the world.

In 2008 we left Ireland for California for another chapter that included divorce and my reinvention into a Digital Marketer.

Since then I've been privileged to work with a long A-List of clients, events, and organizations while also navigating an Earthquake, Wildfires, and a Pandemic. Married again, I co-curated TEDxNapaValley with Sandina aka The Queen of Curls for six years and helped found, and still play for, the Napa Valley Cricket Club.

Along the way my golf has improved, our wine cellar and whiskey stash have both grown, shrunk, and grown again, and I've been chuffed to donate some great Irish Whiskey as prizes for good causes!

Up until 2016 or so, I'd drink whisk(e)y rarely with the Queen of Curls imbibing more of the brown stuff than I would. And on those few occasions that I would drink some, it would be my favoured Scotch, Oban.

Around that time Redbreast 12 started to appear at Costco and at $35 or so a bottle we thought, why not? And I was hooked! It's my gateway whiskey to the new generation of Irish Whiskey. I've lost count of how many bottles of RB12 we've bought, drank, and gifted over the last 6 or so years. Some of you will remember that RB12 used to go on sale at Costco and we'd buy them three-at-a-time for $28 a pop!! 

I've used my time here in Napa Valley to explore the relationship between Ireland and wine and hosted the Irish Wines are Smiling events in 2010 and 2011 and put together a fun livestream on the same topic in 2013. In 2017 after lots of arm-twisting the local paper here did a piece on some of us ex-pats for St. Patrick's Day.

And before the pandemic, we used to ship in sausages, rashers, and puddin' from New York and have a great big “Full Irish” on the weekend closest to St. Patrick's Day that the Six Nations finished on!

During the last 2 years with the pandemic, I've had time to reflect on what I want to do "when I grow up" and I've decided to jump, figuratively, into Irish Whiskey and share what I learn along the way. You're welcome to join me on the journey as I learn about the renaissance in an industry that the Irish once led the world in. From mash bills to cask finishes it's going to be a great adventure.

And I'm sure there'll be stories from the old days along the way. Like the time we got served in the Crown Saloon in Belfast while definitely still a teenager on a school cross-country exchange program.

Or there's the time I ended up in the same nightclub in Valletta as the Irish football team, after we'd just qualified for the 1990 World Cup.

Or the time I got my picture on the front page of the Irish Independent the morning that Ireland played Italy (and won) at Giants Stadium in the 1994 World Cup.

Or the time that I went to Ireland's first men's cricket Test Match and had my pic taken with the President of Ireland...

Andrew Healy, 23 April 2022

Image Credits: Shauna Kenny, Sandina Bailo, Andrew Healy, Napa Valley Register