Old Bushmills Distillery is a distillery in Bushmills, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is the oldest licensed distillery in the world. A cultural icon, this is a distiller with a vast array of classic expressions.
Bushmills are one of the few whiskey producers to continue to triple distil 100% malted barley in copper pot stills to make single malt whiskey. Bushmills Irish Whiskey appointed its new master blender, Alex Thomas, in November 2021. The distillery is a popular tourist attraction, with around 120,000 visitors per year.
A unique aspect of the Old Bushmills Distillery is that malt distilling, blending, maturation and bottling are all carried out on the same site.
In 1885, a disastrous fire destroyed The Old Bushmills Distillery. But it was quickly rebuilt, and back in full production to meet soaring US demand.
The motto from its owners is that Bushmills is the ‘oldest because it is the best, not best because it is oldest’.
History
The area around the distillery has a long tradition with distillation. According to one story, as far back as 1276, an early settler called Sir Robert Savage of Ards fortified his troops with “a mighty drop of acqua vitae”. In 1608, a licence was granted to Sir Thomas Phillips by King James I to distil whiskey. The Bushmills Old Distillery Company itself was not established until 1784 by Hugh Anderson. Since then, it has undergone tumultuous times to become one of the most popular Irish whiskeys on the market.
Taste Profile
Bushmills is known for flavours of...
Malt
Dried Fruit
Apple
Citrus
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