Sunning myself in an Irish Meadow (Halewood Irish Meadow)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Halewood Irish Meadow
Date:	16/08/09 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tastes delicious, an attractive and easy to drink consistency

Disadvantages: A rather heavy drink

It was a lovely evening yesterday so my neighbour and I decided to sit in the garden for a chat while soaking up the lovely dry weather. After a while we both realised we were hungry so while I set about putting a couple of steaks on the BBQ she went round to her house to prepare a quick salad. When she came back she also had a bottle of Irish Meadow Cream Liqueur, the drink that has long since been known as 'poor man's Baileys'.

This description is rather apt as the taste, smell and appearance of this puts me in mind of the infinitely more expensive and well known Baileys although in actual fact I tend to prefer Irish Meadow overall.

It's all down to the consistency of the drink. Irish Meadow is not as thick and gloopy as Baileys, it has the thickness of a good quality milkshake (not those extra thick ones!) and goes down an absolute treat without me heaving or gagging at the thickness as sometimes happens when I drink Baileys.

The flavour of Irish Meadow is rich and creamy, like most cream liqueurs of this type it has a distinct coffee flavour which is apparent as an underlying taste to my drink. It has a slight kick as I drink, but is not harsh in the slightest and has a wonderful sweetness that counteracts any heat in the drink completely.

I drank mine over ice and found the drink to be absolutely perfect. The thinner consistency goes so beautifully with the ice cubes and the chill they lent to the Irish Meadow made it seem a much more luxurious drink that it actually is. Later in the evening I made a coffee and we used Irish Meadow instead of milk to create a kind of hot toddy, the result was absolutely perfect leaving us with sweetened cups of coffee that had a wonderful kick after each mouthful. I could get addicted to those drinks!

The main ingredients in Irish Meadow are whisky (Irish, of course!), cream and white wine. They are all blended so very well that I can't exactly say 'oh, there's the wine' and 'here's the whisky' although the spirit is apparent from the heat inside the otherwise creamy and cooling drink.

The alcohol content in Irish Meadow is higher than you would suspect from the creamy flavour, at 14.5% it can get you tipsy rather quickly! Likewise it can make you rather sick if you rush it due to the heaviness of the drink itself, and also to some extent the high percentage of alcohol.

The best part is that a 70cl bottle costs just £4.29 in my local off licence, a big difference to the price of Baileys which can cost upwards of £13 for the same size bottle dependant on where you buy it from.

Summary: Much cheaper than Baileys and a nicer drink to boot!