There was enough drink on display at the International Food and Drink and Catering exhibition in the RDS, Dublin, yesterday to tip a sensitive Minister for Justice completely over the top.
For side by side with the finest of Spanish wines, French brandies and British ales was the most exotic exhibition of all, Welsh-made poitín. The brainchild of Gwent-based Mr Ben Jones, the 48 per cent proof and totally legal spirt with an illegal past was attracting a lot of attention.
Mr Jones was quick to deny that the Irish should lay sole claim to poitín which, he said, got its name from the small portable pots in which it was distilled, hence the name poteen.
"All the Celtic people had a native brew and it was common to all of us. It was also illegal everywhere but the Irish continued to make it," he said. "I decided to try making and marketing it some years ago but it took me a long time to get the flavour right. I did, I pay the revenue and it's legal."
He now sells his brand of Celtic Poitín to France, Germany, Japan and some into the United States from the company's base in Pontypool.
The Minister for State for Agriculture and Food, Mr Noel Treacy, who officially opened the trade-only event, blamed distributers and retailers for the high price of food here. "The Government is putting systems in place to look at the levels of profit being taken in these sectors which is also fuelling inflation," he said.
"All I can tell you is that it is not the primary producer, the farmer, who is getting the prices being paid by the consumers. I can see no sense in cleaning out the consumer."
Mr Treacy is the Minister with responsibility for food.
More than 300 companies are taking part in the IFEX event which features several state-funded national stands from Spain, Germany and Poland and regional stands from Britain and Wales, as well many exhibitors from both sides of the Border.