Poitín still occupied "a special place" in some parts of Kerry, but there could be no guarantee the illicit brew was safe and had been properly made, a doctor has warned.
Dr Eamonn Shanahan, current chairman of the Irish College of GPs, was speaking after gardaí in Kerry this week seized four drums of poitín. Tralee gardaí seized the alcohol in a rented shed in a rural area of north Kerry after being called to a fire in the shed.
The seized poitín was part of a more widespread operation, gardaí believe, and they are still searching for equipment.
Poitín in Kerry is drunk but is also used to "cure" a wide range of ailments including aches and pains. It is used to lubricate the joints of people suffering from rheumatism and on greyhounds.
However, Dr Shanahan said it could have concentrations of near pure alcohol and was potentially fatal.
He told a local newspaper that patients in Kerry still present to hospital violently ill from poitín consumption. He said it could cause blindness.
Poitín was sometimes contaminated by substances such as battery acid, he said, and unscrupulous people would take short cuts in its production.
"A drop of the crature (creator)," had a firm historically hold on the imagination, Dr Shanahan said yesterday.
"Whilst I recognise poitín has a special place in Irish culture, the difficulty is you have no guarantee it is safe, and you cannot tell by looking at it." There have been at least two deaths in the county from poitín in the last decade or so.
A spokesman in the Garda Press Office said apart from small pockets in the west of Ireland and Kerry, poitín finds were now rare.
He added that the production of the illegal alcohol was very much on the decline.