Bushmills Irish whiskey has been around for a very long time. It’s one of the pioneers and has become famous for its single malt whiskies and traditional Irish background. Although it was founded in the Emerald Isle, the distillery’s namesake brand is now available in markets all over the world. Despite its long history, Bushmills doesn’t rest on its laurels. The company has made an effort to stay relevant by introducing new products at regular intervals, such as the 10-, 12-, and 17-year-old whiskeys in 1983 and the bourbon cask-aged whiskey in 2017. Its distillery, meanwhile, is drawing visitors. Even though it has been overtaken as the most popular distillery in Northern Ireland, Bushmills still attracts tourists from all over the globe who are interested in sampling some of the best Irish whiskey.
Learn few more interesting tidbits about the long-standing Bushmills Irish Whiskey label right here.
It is an oldest licensed whiskey distillery
Whiskey has been made at Bushmills for almost 400 years. Every bottle of Bushmills displays proudly the year it was founded, 1608. It was released in 1608, which puts it 41 years after Henry VII and his six brides ruled England and twelve years before the Mayflower set sail for the New World. Due to its lengthy history, Bushmills is sometimes considered the world’s oldest legal whiskey distillery.
In that year, King James I granted Sir Thomas Phillips the privilege of distilling alcohol. While Sir Thomas may have started distilling whiskey at the site that is now the Bushmills distillery, he is not properly recognized as the company’s founder. It wasn’t until 1784, while Hugh Anderson was at the helm, that the distillery was legally incorporated as a business.
Name Is a Reference to The Unique Terrain of Northern Ireland
The Bushmills Distillery may be found close to where the river Bush meets the Atlantic Ocean in cold, cloudy Northern Ireland. Whiskey from Bushmills has been diluted with water from the river Bush for generations. The distillery got its name, “Bushmills,” from the river Bush and the grain mills located there. The bigger community in which the distillery is situated is also called Bushmills, which is a name inspired by the local landscape.
In order to adhere to its original formula, Bushmills had to pay a barley levy imposed by the Crown.
In the 18th century, malted barley was the main ingredient in manufacturing Irish whiskey. In an effort to raise revenue from distillers and reduce excessive alcohol use, the British government instituted the Malt Tax in 1785, which dramatically altered the industry.
Many distillers redirected their strategies to reduce their tax liabilities by increasing the proportion of un-malted barley in their mash bills. Others choose to substitute maize for wheat and skip the fee altogether. Even nevertheless, Bushmills showed no inclination to alter its methods. The company paid the extra money in the hopes of seeing a return down the road. The whiskeys produced at this distillery are said to be made entirely from malted barley, making it the only such facility in Ireland.
They stuck to single malt through it all
When it comes to ingredients, Bushmills always chooses barley. Only single malt whiskeys, made solely from malted barley and produced by a single distillery, are produced at this facility. Blended whiskeys, or those that include grains other barley, do not carry the label. After the Malt Tax was implemented, Bushmills was already set on being a single malt distillery, and it hasn’t wavered since. You can buy from thesinglemaltshop.
The Bushmills brand may have been lost by a fire that destroyed the distillery, but it wasn’t.
In 1885, a tragic fire destroyed the old Bushmills distillery. The whisky, however, was supposedly saved in its bottles. Work at the distillery restarted in the late 1880s after a rapid reconstruction that increased the facility’s size.
In 1890, the first shipment of Bushmills whiskey made its way over the open sea
The first shipment of whiskey bottles left the coast of Northern Ireland aboard a steamer owned by the distillery and appropriately christened the SS Bushmills. The haul set sail over the Atlantic in pursuit of fame and fortune, initially establishing its mark in the United States before going worldwide.
To celebrate their first journey across the Atlantic, Bushmills released the Steamship Collection in 2015. In honor of the voyage’s 125th anniversary, a limited-edition series of four Irish whiskies was issued, each of which was matured in a different kind of spirit cask: sherry, bourbon, port, and rum.
