- Pat Burke, an incredibly special bottle of Paddy Irish whiskey for "My Favo rite Irish... Fáilte ar ais. You are all very welcome back to the bar here for a bit of a special gathering. Pat Burke, got you at the bar, and you brought an absolutely magical bottle of whiskey.

- Yes. This is Paddy's Old Irish Whiskey that I purchased in Ireland in 1984 and brought it home, and I still have it. Here's what's left of it.

- Which is probably the most impressive part of it all is that it's still here.

- Yeah, it's still there.

- So you and I have chatted about getting you to the bar and, and sipping on a bit of whiskey and you said you wanted to bring your favorite, so a special treat for me to have it. We've obviously got the, the modern iteration of it next door, so probably not fair to do a side by side tasting, but we'll, we'll taste a little bit of both of them. And you told me that you bought more than one bottle.

- I did.

- Back in 1984.

- They let me back into the country with it too, because I didn't realize I didn't, and the guy says, oh, don't worry about it.

- I'm not sure what your duty free allowance was back then.

- They were more concerned about me being on our farm and they wanted to see my shoes than they were about the, the whiskey.

- Okay, that makes sense. So the, the Paddy brand is one that I remember when I grew up there was, there was, obviously I grew up in the dark days of Irish whiskey. There wasn't many brands. There was only a couple of distilleries, and Paddy is one of those that stood out. And one of the reasons being it's got a map of the country on the front label and you know, yours shows the four provinces in their respective colors. You know, the modern iteration you know, has moved on from there. But, so it, it's going to do some quick maths here. So it's 38 years old.

- Yeah. 38 years old.

- How has it managed to last it this long?

- Well, I don't drink a lot of it, but I had it buried away in a dark little cupboard, you know.

- Okay.

- And wasn't exposed to sunlight. And it's been, it's been, I've taken it to my barbecue competitions actually.

- Okay.

- And that probably attributed to most of the drainage on it, but it's special and I don't, you know, it's, I'm going to take it down to the last drop, but I don't know when that'll be.

- Okay. And, and obviously we, we won't taste a huge amount of it here because it's for a special occasion.

- We can enjoy as much as.

- Well. I, I appreciate that. So obviously an Irish name. Pat Burke. Patrick Burke.

- Right.

- Where, where's the ancestry?

- Well, my ancestry was, they were from Cork and Limerick.

- Okay.

- They were, I guess that would be my great-grandfather. Great-great-grandfather I think, and grandmother. And my first wife, Judy, she was a direct as descendant with her grandparents that came from Northern Ireland directly to, to the United States.

- Okay.

- And came and, and developed their, their home in Philadelphia, just outside Philadelphia. So my Irish ancestry, I have a passport, I'm a citizen, was through her.

- Okay.

- Through her, her direct descendant.

- And obviously Cork and Limerick, you know, good Munster stock. That part of the world, have you been back to trace it?

- I have been back to both Cork and Limerick, but I have not, I sit on a bench and just-

- Enjoy the view.

- Enjoy the view.

- Yeah. And there's many great views in that part of the world. So this is from 1984.

- Right.

- I know you've been back since, the last time you were in Ireland was-

- 2013.

- And you showed me some photos, obviously with Judy. You trace some of her ancestry and lineage. You told me some great stories about happening upon some great people who took you down laneways to-

- Out on country roads and, and through records, through the County, and on the computer, this gentleman took us and says, I know where your, grandparents were born and took us to an old stone house that had fallen apart, overgrown.

- There's always one of them in every village in Ireland, who knows all the scandal and gossip for generations.

- This gentleman did. We were directed there by the, the Postmaster in town.

- Okay. So 2013 was the last trip. Any plans to go now that, now that we're-

- I wanted to go back last year, but we just did most of it in France and Italy.

- Okay. Because that's right. You're, and one of the reasons I know you is that you're now remarried to a lady that I've known for years who has, I go by AH, when I sign, but Katherine goes by K Z or KZ.

- KZ, yeah.

- Which I think is...

- Katherine Zimmer. It's almost the start of a radio call sign, isn't it that, so I've known Katherine for years. Somebody I've a lot of respect for, we both work in and around the marketing sphere. You were the last people, you and Katherine were the last people to come to the house before the pandemic.

- Oh, geez.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. That was that.

- I remember that.

- Yeah. It was, I think it was the Saturday night before St. Patrick's in 2020, we had dinner, and I remember-

- First time I met you.

- Yeah.

- And I remember Katherine as we were leaving, going, well, should we hug? Should we not hug? And literally that was the last person beyond, you know, beyond my good lady wife

- Pretty crazy time.

- Yeah.

- So I think there was a little bit of that.

- Consumed over.

- There. Probably. It was here during that time. And now.

- It's goodness, you've been restrained, you've done well not getting through it.

- Several years.

- I'll be that. So, ancestry coming from Cork and Limerick. But you're a California boy.

- Born and raised in Oakland.

- Okay. And in the East Bay and educated by, by the priests there or-

- I went to Catholic school in Oakland for my elementary years.

- Okay.

- And then I went to public schools after that, so.

- Okay.

- And did some law enforcement in the town and, and then moved to Napa in 1994.

- Okay. So you've been here a fair while then?

- Yeah, yeah. And have been here, same house and out in Browns Valley, and great environment and a lovely area.

- And I know you as someone who likes to dabble in the culinary arts.

- I do. I'm retired but semi-retired. I just was hired by Napa Valley College to be accredited instructor and adjunct.

- Great.

- Professor, professor, instructor.

- Professor Burke.

- I'm going to be teaching my first credited course in culinary.

- Great.

- In January. I'll be Tuesdays and and Thursdays from 10 to 2.

- Okay.

- Taking attendance and doing all that stuff, but-

- We'll, we'll talk about more food stuff as we go on, but obviously great for you then to share your experience with with the next generation.

- And I've done some stuff through their, up in St. Helena at their Upper Valley campus and their kitchen there.

- Yeah.

- The Melrose kitchen and, and teach one day classes, food and wine enthusiast program that they have. And I was in competitive barbecue for, since 2001. I don't do it any longer, but-

- That's an art and craft all of its own here in America, isn't it?

- Yeah. And I traveled all over the United States through the south, you know, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Memphis, Tennessee. Done the world championships in Memphis three times.

- Really?

- Yeah. The best we ever finished was fifth place in the world and cooking a whole hog.

- Wow. That's impressive.

- Yeah, a lot of fun.

- I've learned in my time here that barbecue is different regionally-

- Yep.

- Through the states.

- Yep.

- And in those various regions, or even within states, they are fierce proud of what they do.

- Well of course they are,

- Their recipes and, and that a lot of it is handed down. Is there, is there a California style?

- Yeah, sure there is. Yeah. It's probably a mixed mash of everything else.

- Just like so many things here in California. So we're going to continue chatting about a few things, but I'm going to be very, if you don't mind, I'm going to pour teeny tiny drop of this. I know. It's precious stuff. So I taste with two glasses, Pat, so I'm going to pour a tiny bit in there, and I use the two glasses so that we can, we can find out more about the nose. So from one end to the other. So that's how I do it. And then, yeah. Without the alcohol. God, that's gorgeous.

- It is, it's very unique. I think, you know.

- You're so used to this, obviously the smell and the taste of this because it's your favorite Irish, it's your go-to, but I find it to be, first impressions, I, before we jumped into the recording, I nosed the top of the bottle, and I found a lot of spice coming out of it, now that I've actually poured into the glass.

- So, you know, you being in the wine business like I was for a number of years, I always found too that the, that that the empty glass actually is, is a way of really getting the esters and all of the-

- Yeah, and I've discovered that more so with whiskey because it takes the alcohol out of the equation, and obviously there's more alcohol in, in whiskey than wine. So, so you mentioned time in the wine biz here in Napa since 94. And you've had some fun around wine.

- Yeah. I worked in, in Rutherford at Beaulieu Vineyard for a number of years.

- Okay. One of the historic wineries of the valley.

- One of the first five.

- Yeah.

- And some fabulous wines at Georges De Latour was one of my favorites. Always has been. And then went up to Calistoga, and actually started as the operations manager for a, a little partnership of people that started a winery up there and unfortunately that, their project didn't last.

- Okay. Which is happens more often than people would think around here.

- They had great ideas and, but it just didn't, it just didn't pan out. So, it is now another winery. Somebody else bought it.

- Of course, of course. As is the way.

- We did all the work, we all, we did all the-

- We should say Sláinte because I'm going to have a teeny sip.

- We, we did all the work and built the project and then-

- Wow, what a treat. What an absolute treat.

- Very smooth. You can feel the heat.

- Yeah. And there's spice on the tongue. There's a, we talked about this beforehand. I don't know what the, these are, this is a blended whiskey, you know, the modern version, which, we'll, which we'll taste in a few minutes is sells for less than $20 a bottle. I really, really like it. I think it's a good, good to very good whiskey at that price. Again, pretty soft and smooth. I'm finding this to be spicer and I'm guessing, and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, that there's some pot still whiskey in here. A decent chunk of pot still, which, which gives that spiced character from the distillation process.

- We had talked earlier too, you said 43% abv.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah. So 43, and the modern version weighs in at 40.

- Yeah.

- So, you know, a lot of the commercial whiskeys come in at 40. I think with the, with that little bit of extra alcohol, it just gives the flavors a little lift. But on the palate that is just sublime, there's a, it's almost a bready character to it. It's just-

- Very. Yeah.

- Yeah. It's not, its a meaty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not a, it's a real treat. A real treat. So going back to barbecue, and you have a great Instagram handle.

- Napa Valley Barbecue King. @NVBBQKing. I can't remember how I got it. I think it was a coworker of mine that said, "Oh, you need to be on Instagram." I said, "what's that?" And he goes, "oh, I'll take care of it for you." Next thing you know, he says, "Here, this is what you're, this is who you are."

- So he crowned you the barbecue king of the Napa Valley.

- Yeah, Jay Brewner.

- Okay. Yeah, I know Jay. Yeah. Great guy. So yeah, no, this is fantastic. Fantastic. So you've obviously lived in, I people know I've lived here since 2008. You're here much longer than that. So you've seen things change, grow and evolve and, and, and you know, most of it for the good, some of it not so good. So obviously a love of whiskey. Where's, where's your go to places for, let's say a great cocktail here?

- Well, I think that the, there's a what pronounce it for me?

- ArBARetum, isn't it.

- ArBARetum? That's what I thought it was, but it was, yeah.

- And the "BAR" is actually, I think, capital letters because it's a bar, yeah.

- And it's on First Street there across from the, was it Archer Hotel I think. Yeah.

- Yeah, so it's part of what the distillery is doing here in town.

- Yeah. So I'm going to give you, I'm just going to go over one, two, three drops of distilled water there just to.

- And then I think one of the best old, Old Fashions are my favorite. I love Old Fashions.

- Okay.

- I think one of the best Old Fashions I've had was at the Kitchen Door.

- Okay.

- Yeah. Yeah. At the bar.

- At the bar. And obviously they've just moved location here in town. They were at the Oxbow Market, and they're now in First Street Napa.

- Yeah. And great spot.

- You know this, but folks won't know actually, our next door neighbors own the restaurant. Todd and Amelia and great people, great people. I know one of the folks who works at their bar. So it's lovely to hear you say that you really enjoy their, their cocktails there. So do you ever put together your passion for Irish whiskey and, and meat? Because obviously most barbecue is meat. And would you have a, would you have a pairing for.

- Well I would say that I think a steak would be awesome.

- Okay.

- But maybe after the steak, or after the steak, I'd have that, or before, of course I'm partial to wine.

- Aren't we both, yeah. Aren't we all already? Yeah.

- But nice steak with some maybe scallop potatoes, and rich, heavy meal.

- Yeah, I've always, my thing has been that if you're going to pair whiskey with something, there has to be fat in there. Fat that's, and I haven't done any work on, on trying to pair things, but it to me it's like the, the warmth and richness and spice character and, and obviously the alcohol helps to, would help to cut through that. Really interesting with the, with a few drops-

- Picked up a little bit of chocolate.

- I was going to say some, I was almost going to say fudge.

- Yeah. Yeah. I picked up a little bit of.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Oh, it's, it's intriguing. It really is Pat to, to taste something like this. So, so we've talked cocktails, we've talked pairings, obviously Kitchen Door, you reckon they do your favorite cocktail? ArBARetum, anywhere else in town?

- Cole's Chop House. Okay.

- Yeah.

- Well that's where you get-

- Great bar.

- Cocktails and the steak. Yeah, okay. Yeah, they've been around, they've been, they've been around forever, so. Excellent. Right. Let's pour a little bit of, of the modern iteration. So for folks who don't know the story of why Paddy is called Paddy, it originally had a really long name. It was basically the Cork Distilleries Company Blended Irish Whiskey. And a guy called Paddy Flaherty was their salesman. And apparently Paddy did a great job of selling all around Cork. And one of his sales techniques was to buy everyone a round when he would go out selling. So, you know, you're bound to sell more whiskey when you're buying it at the other end. It got to the stage apparently that when people would order in they'd call in their order I'm, I'm assuming on a telephone, you know, back in the day. And because it had a really long name, people just started calling it Paddy or Paddy's whiskey. So apparently, and I a little bit of contradiction online when I was researching it, but 1912 apparently, is when they actually changed the name to Paddy's Irish whiskey, and as I said earlier, it was one of the few brands that.

- There is was definitely a difference.

- Wow. Yeah. This is, you know, this is obviously a commercial whiskey. Today's standards.

- This I'm picking up notes of like honey and a sweetness.

- Yeah.

- Then I can't put my-

- Yeah. To me there's a Jolly, Apple Jolly Rancher.

- Yes. Yeah.

- So again, when I was, when I was reading about the modern iteration, couple of different views on people, we don't know the blend, we don't know what's in it. As I said, I suspect there's a chunk of pot still whiskey in what you brought.

- There's a huge difference.

- This is much more commercial. They say that there, one, one piece I read said that it was more single malt or malted whiskey in there. And, but then another one said there's a, a chunk of grain whiskey and grain whiskey generally is made from corn. So, and that would to me, lead us to this kind of sweetness, this.

- Right.

- And obviously to Sazerac's credit, because Sazerac now owned the brand. They bought it in 2016 from Irish Distillers. They're actually bringing it in bulk here to America, and bottling it. So, you know, a step in the right direction in terms of they're not shipping heavy glass bottles.

- Right.

- But yeah, that's a different, completely different whiskey.

- Completely different. This has to me more of a peaty, as well.

- When you say earthy. Yeah.

- Earthy. Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah. Because you've told me in conversations that you're not a.

- Fan of. I'm not a fan of Scotch whiskey.

- And the peated style. Yeah. But yeah, I tasted this as people can see, you know, the bottle is not full. I'm going to be hopefully before we're done with the year, do a video of Irish whiskeys under $20 and that this one fits in here. And I, for a drinking whisky.

- You could drink that all day long.

- Yeah.

- I don't think you'd be able to.

- But I'm not sure when you'd be starting or finish.

- It's extremely, it's smooth, it's very smooth.

- Very smooth, soft, very attractive.

- For for a whiskey.

- Yeah. I agree with you. Doesn't have any of the complexity or character that, that this older bottle has.

- Pretty straightforward.

- Yeah. I'm going to drop a few in there and see what that does now. Fascinating to, fascinating to try them. Pat. So obviously we, we, I shared the story earlier. We saw you, you were the last people that we saw before the pandemic, obviously a a positive and negative time for us all. And, and you know, silver linings, you know, my silver lining is my journey into whiskey from it. But you did something wonderful through that time. I know you're an avid swimmer. You swim a lot every day.

- Every day.

- But you did a swim challenge.

- I did American Cancer Society. I saw it on Facebook and they swim a mile and they, their goal was 16 miles and I did it in just, in a little over 14 days and then continued on swimming. So I think I totaled I think 26 or 27 miles.

- Wow. Good for you.

- In the month of July.

- And so when you're doing your normal morning swim, what sort of distance would you be swimming?

- I do 2000 yards. So that's 80 laps.

- Wow.

- One, two. So 80, 80 lengths.

- Wow.

- And I can, I can do it. My best time, my best time was 30, just a little over 36 minutes, nonstop. I did it today in 30.38

- Because as we know, none of us are getting any younger, Pat.

- No.

- But good on you for getting out and doing that. Yeah. Almost every day or every?

- I take the weekends off. Saturday and Sunday.

- Okay. That's, that's allowed.

- You'll see me at the pool. I'm at a different pool now, so it's usually 10 o'clock in the morning and, and I'm done. And, you know, less than 40 minutes. And, and I know that you have a, because I've seen photos you've shared, there's a group of you from your swim who socialize together now.

- Yeah.

- Now that we've come out the other side, almost.

- A friends, one of, one of them. We had dinner this weekend and we watched the Georgia, Mississippi State football game. Because we have a, a mutual friend whose son is there. Starting Tight End.

- Okay. Brilliant.

- For Georgia.

- That's And he came from Napa, didn't he?

- Yeah, he lives right, right, right near me. Okay.

- About two blocks away.

- Okay, great.

- A great kid. Brock Bowers.

- Okay.

- Good football name huh?

- And destined for greater things, is he?

- Yes.

- He's good. Okay. Good. Obviously, you know, you have Irish ancestry. I'm, you know, I'm born there. My son kicked for Napa High, but I still struggle with, with the game. I, it's, I'm not something I'm raised with. I appreciate the arts that exist within the game, and some of the dark arts that exist within the game. But I struggle to watch it. So that was one of the things that I did too in the culinary world, is that I worked actually and was a chef for the Oakland Raiders when they were here in Napa for their training camp.

- That's right.

- I did a their last season here and did their lunches, and dinners, cooked to order for them.

- Yeah, because folks won't know. But the, the Raiders used to come to Napa for their pre-season training camp. Yeah.

- Every year. Their pre-camps. They did six weeks here.

- Yeah. They had a.

- So for six weeks I was working seven days a week or, yeah. It was a, it was a tough one.

- And you're a Raiders fan?

- I was Oakland, you know, born and raised there. Now they're in Vegas.

- Well that's why I say Raiders because I remember them back in the 80's.

- Yeah.

- When they were down south.

- Yeah. Because back in-

- They went to LA.

- Yeah, back in the 80's, American Football was shown on Channel 4, an English channel. So I'm actually a Dolphins fan from those days, for two reasons. One, they actually did okay back then. Back then a man called Marino could actually throw the ball.

- He could.

- And their colors were green, white and orange.

- Yeah. There you go.

- So I put one and one together and they were, that's how I've yeah. They haven't done too well recently, but nor have the Raiders. Unfortunately.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- And any plans to go down to Las Vegas and watch?

- I'd like to go see a game, but I understand the stadium's amazing. But yeah, I don't know. I met on a lot of nice guys. I mean, there's some, there's some decent people that, that, that play that game. Yeah. And they're very appreciative of everything that I did for them. And if I can, Derek Carr, their quarterback would come out every morning and would come to where I was cooking lunch, and would come back behind into the, my little cooking area and give me a hug every morning and say, say, "Yeah, we, I appreciate everything you're doing."

- That's lovely.

- Because if it wasn't you, you know, we wouldn't be here. You're feeding me. Thank you.

- Lovely.

- I'll take double cheeseburger.

- Well, it's, it's great that there's actually people behind this.

- Yeah.

- Regardless of the sport, whether it's football or baseball or soccer, you know, they're real humans. And it's nice to actually meet them on that level. Which you got to do.

- Yeah, that was pretty, that was, that was the good part of it. The other part was just the long hours. It was tough. It really was. You know, and I'm not young anymore, so.

- Well, we won't let your secret out. Keep swimming and it'll keep you young. Pat, we, we, we're going to continue chatting, but we're going to stop recording, so Sláinte.

- Thank you.

- Yeah. To your health.

- For inviting me. I appreciate it.

- Well, I'm greatly appreciative that you brought this incredible gem out to share with me. I do appreciate it. I'm sure people will comment below on how envious they are. That we got to share this together. And I look forward to over the winter and into next year, cracking a few, a few more bottles that if.

- You have a few to do. Yeah. You know, some that haven't been opened yet. Yeah.

- You're giving away my secrets now. Yeah. I'm slowly getting there. Yeah. My, kind of, obviously, you know, we talked about tasting wine. What I do first is I'll open a bottle and I'll pour it and drink it straight. No ice or water. Then I'll do one with some ice, and then I'll actually do a proper tasting note like we would do in wine. And I'll lay it down in the kitchen on the white surface and I'll do a tasting note. And that just allows me to experience it in different ways. Yeah. So when, when just we've got some fun ones in there.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- So.

- Slane.

- Slane, yeah. Owned by one of the big boys. So Brown Forman are the owners of Slane, but that's one of the reasons why Irish whiskey is doing so well is the big boys have gotten involved, you know, obviously Sazerac now own Paddy or Paddy's. So, so yeah. We thank you for your time.

- Thank you.

- And yeah, we will. Cheers. Cheers. What a treat...what an absolute treat. Thank you very much.

- Yeah. Oh, you're welcome.

- Oh, that's just, that's magical. Truly magical.