Irish Cream Three-Way: Carolan's vs Bailey's vs Ballycastle Premium

For many people, Irish Cream is a staple requirement around Christmas time. That’s why the main supermarkets start a bit of a price war, one that this year led to Baileys being available in Asda for £9. Yes, that’s more than you’d pay for Aldi’s Ballycastle Premium, but as I keep saying, Baileys is the undisputed king, and that’s a pretty good discount (about £5).

For me, Irish Cream is a staple all the time, though particularly in my coffee of a Sunday morning. I’ve been trying other brands, but I’d actually started to think I might never get around to buying a bottle of actual Baileys again, you see it’s hard to justify the usual price tag when the Ballycastle Premium is so damn good. At £9 though, I’d be letting you down if I didn’t give it a shot – especially since all the Carolan’s would soon be gone so, not only did I need a new bottle, but if there was ever going to be a chance to compare two premium Irish Cream brands, this was going to be it.

don't know why I can't rotate this...

Asda actually had a choice of Baileys flavours on offer, but I haven’t gotten around to those yet. It’s the Original I’m interested in at this point. Mrs Cake agreed to join me in a comparative tasting later that afternoon.

Statistics first though; I paid an outrageous £14.50 for the Carolan’s, which equates to £1 per percent of ABV. The Baileys, which is usually pricey, as I said was £9, but here you’re getting a cockle-warming 17%.

In terms of packaging, they are not dissimilar, though Baileys seem to have streamlined their bottle a little, which I actually prefer to the standard Irish Cream receptacle. Baileys has some fun text on the back that says something along the lines of… we like cream and we like spirits. But both together, they said? We just smiled…

So, one comparative tasting with the missus coming up…

Method

The main use we have for Irish Cream is over ice, so that would be where the winner would be decided. I would also try the Baileys in coffee, but that would be just additional to the main experiment. I poured a glass of each product for Mrs Cake and I and repaired to the living room to watch a bit of telly and draw some conclusions.

Visuals

I couldn't tell any difference. Both look creamy and good, neither show the kind of wateriness you might expect from cheaper brands. Neither are cheap, so all is as it should be. Mrs Cake called them out by sight, but I forgot to ask her what gave it away.

Tasting

I don’t drink Irish Cream in the same way I drink spirits so nosing doesn’t really come into it. I started with a couple of sips of Carolan’s, and enjoyed it as I had been doing up to now. When I went for a sip of the Bailey’s though, the nose leaps out at you… it’s just so creamy… like good ice cream. And the flavour… is just superb, not a note out of place. Carolan’s is nice, in fact Mrs Cake said she prefers Carolan’s for its unique flavour, but for me, while I enjoy the Carolan’s, moving back to the Baileys makes me exclaim – out loud, things like ‘it’s like chocolate truffles!’. It achieves the ultimate accolade – a drink that is worth savouring every drop so for me, at this point it is still the king.

When it comes to coffee, I already stated in an earlier post that Carolan’s doesn’t go too well. There’s just something a bit weird about it. None of that with Baileys… in fact no other Irish Cream has failed to excel with coffee so far, so that has to be a mark against Carolan’s.

Well, we know now who is the Irish Cream champion among the higher priced category, but we need to know who is really the king though. I had to get a Ballycastle Premium in, didn’t I? Oh yes. So I did.

It has featured on this blog before, but just as a reminder, Ballycastle Premium is the premium expression of Aldi’s flagship own brand. For ABV it matches Baileys with 17% and my latest bottle cost £6.49 – that’s an increase of 50p on last time, though it still represents great value.

There’s no need to go too deeply into this one, so let’s cut to the chase; is it as good as Bailey’s? Well, not quite, but it’s very close. Mrs Cake reckons she prefers the normal Ballycastle to both, but for me the Bailey’s is just slightly more luxurious, slightly better balanced, more creamy, less milky but… you have to remember that pricetag. If you can pick up a Bailey’s consistently for £9 I’d recommend that you do but if you can’t… or if the pounds are a little hard to come by one month… Ballycastle Premium makes an able deputy.

I think… it’s time to start heading out into all the different supermarkets and seeing what alternative brands they have. Keep an eye out for further updates.

That's me for this week. The post is a bit early as I'm going to the Bearded Theory festival tomorrow to stand about in the rain and drink 24 cans of Holsten Pils along with whatever spirits I can handle and hopefully a liberal quantity of Thornbridge Ales. Then next week I'll be in the depths of despair once more. Join me once the horrors have subsided for another post. And enjoy yer bank holiday.

Alcohol as an aid to DIY

I hate DIY. Hate it. It’s not just that I’m shit at it, it’s also that I have absolutely no interest in practicing it, it takes all day (carrying on way beyond the moment you realise you’re incredibly bored and want it to end), it always reveals two more jobs that need doing, it doesn’t seem to look any better when you’re finished and then… it takes about as long to tidy up as it did to do the work in the first place.

So when Mrs Cake raised the idea of decorating our bedroom last weekend, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy but I do realise that sometimes these things need doing. I want to be better, I really do. I just have to try really, really hard… and think of some way to make the whole thing more appealing.

“How about we make it fun?” I said, “Maybe by getting beers in and drinking all day?”

I didn’t quite expect what happened next.

“Yeah!” said Mrs Cake, “and we could have Baileys* in our coffee in the morning, and make nice sandwiches, then for tea we could get a takeaway!”

“Yay!”

“Yay!”

And that is what has earned Mrs Cake and I a reputation amongst our friends for making “things” out of things. I don’t know; we’re just trying to make life more fun. Cos if life isn’t fun… what is it? What’s it for?

We went to the big Tesco on Friday night to get supplies – sandwich fixings, bottled ales for Mrs Cake, Holsten Pils for me and a half bottle of Tesco’s standard blended scotch for a feature that will be coming up an indeterminate amount of time in the future... then it was back home to relax with pizza, beers, grappa and the opening of the Ardbeg 10 (again, more later).

On to Saturday morning. We had the Baileys* in our coffees, prepared the bedroom, grabbed a beer and made a start. Result? The day went relatively smoothly. Sure, there were minor meltdowns like when I got paint on Mrs Cake’s digital radio, and when Mrs Cake was trying to make me throw out things that I haven’t gotten around to using yet (just because I can’t juggle with six balls, it doesn’t mean I only need three of them… one day I might find the time and inclination to practice), but I think some of the stress was brought on by the magnitude of the job ahead of us. The alcohol probably didn’t help out too much at first, but as the day wore on and we made progress, it really helped. The work keeps you busy enough to remain fairly sober, but the alcohol gives you that burst of energy to keep going – and you can use it in a carrot and stick type situation – I’ll just paint the rest of this wall, then have a big swig of beer. Nor does drinking as you go lessen the satisfaction of having a beer at the end because the beer at the end still celebrates finishing the job.

We did the same on Sunday also, culminating with three hours trying to put an Ikea chest of drawers together, but we just powered through – except the part where Mrs Cake had a minor meltdown because we managed to break a bit off. We fixed it with glue though.

Clearly alcohol may not be suited to all kinds of DIY – such as things that require accuracy and sharp or powerful tools – but you might still want to give it a try. There was one moment before lunch where I was struggling to paint the ceiling because I had to be standing up a ladder, looking upwards and manoeuvring a roller back and forth, under the influence, but it didn’t turn out to be too much of a problem, and I took it as a cue to get some food.

Three things to remember then, before I leave you. First, make sure you get all the supplies in that you are likely to need ahead of time. You don’t want to find that you need to make a trip to B&Q, which is a drive away, when you’re already a few pints down – or even more than one pint down really.

Second, don’t underestimate the importance of well-timed food.

Finally, drinking and decorating is merely a case of offsetting something unpleasant with something pleasant – yin and yang; that’s the foundation of the whole universe. It is alco-thusiasm not alcoholism. Alcohol can be your friend, just be responsible and treat it with respect.

And with those wise words, I’ll leave you for another week.

*Carolan’s on this occasion