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Day 11 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - Bushmills 21 Year

Posted on December 11, 2024

Day 11 — Bushmills 21-Year-Old

By Evan

How’s about we go Irish today? From what I am told, this is kind of like going Dutch, but instead of splitting the bill, we divide the country arbitrarily based on which sect of Christianity we believe in.

Bad joke, I know. I just can’t help myself on occasion. Let’s put that behind us and discuss today’s bottle: The venerable Bushmills 21-Year-Old.

I have to admit: I have never put much thought or research into Bushmills Distillery, beyond what I have done for the occasional Irish Whiskey tasting, which always seems to take place around Saint Patrick’s Day for some unknown reason. I recall purchasing a bottle of Bushmills Black Bush and enjoying it around 15 years ago, but that is the only bottle from this company I have bought. Shall we discover the distillery together?

Bushmills has a history dating back to either 1608 or 1784, depending on who you ask. The answer given changes based on whether you are talking to somebody who works for the company that makes Bushmills, or just about anybody else. Bushmills claims to be the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world thanks to the 1608 mentioned, and that year is emblazoned on every Bushmills bottle. Distillation at the site where Bushmills now exists did officially start in 1608, when Sir Thomas Philips received a royal license to distill “aquavit, usquabagh and aqua composita” by King James I. The Old Bushmills Distillery Company wasn’t officially established until 1784 by Hugh Anderson.

What does the date really matter? This is really just semantics. One date is right, and the other date is fodder for advertising. Regardless: Bushmills can officially be considered old enough to draw a pension, but it continues to work regardless.

There was a lengthy period in which Irish Whiskey was the most popular spirit in the world, but that tailed off between the 1800s up to right about now. Increased government scrutiny and stringent taxes on production dropped the number of licensed distilleries in Ireland from a whopping 1,228 in 1779 to 246 by 1790. By 1821, only 32 licensed distilleries remained in Ireland. There was a brief time of expansion after this. In 1835, there were 93 licensed distilleries operating in Ireland. That number dropped heavily over the next century due to wars, prohibition, consolidation of production, and a host of other reasons.

By 1966, Bushmills was one of only two operating whiskey distilleries left in Ireland. That’s right, there was a time in the recent past where Campbeltown had as many operating whisky distilleries as the whole of Ireland.

(Bushmills has a fun virtual tour set up online. For those of us that have not visited, you can tour the Old Bushmills Distillery here.)

Bushmills Distillery resides in County Antrim, within Northern Ireland. The other distillery that remained was the Midleton Distillery in County Cork, which resides in the Republic of Ireland to the south and produced Jameson among other brands. There is a myth that Bushmills was considered a Protestant Whiskey and Jameson a Catholic Whiskey due to the religious and governmental division that Ireland has struggled with over the years. Thankfully, drinking brings us all together – unless you are a teetotaller, I suppose. The idea that you had to drink one of these brands only based on which church you went to seems to be a legend perpetuated by TV show characters and a few goofy Americans canonizing their generations-removed Irish heritage.

Style-wise, Bushmills does one of the two things that Irish Whiskey is stereotypically known for: it triple distills its single malt. What it doesn’t do is make single pot still Irish Whiskey, which is where unmalted barley or other unmalted grains are blended with malted barley during fermentation and distillation. When the Malt tax was instituted by the controlling British government in 1785, Bushmills paid the tax instead of attempting to circumvent it like its single pot still whiskey making competitors.

The core range of Bushmills includes the Bushmills Original and the Bushmills Black Bush are both Blended Irish Whiskey – made of Triple Distilled Single malt and Triple Distilled grain whiskey. Bushmills also has a Triple Distilled Single Malt Range consisting of 10, 12, 16, 21, 25, and 30-year-old bottlings. Today we will be tasting the Bushmills 21-Year-Old.

Bushmills 21-Year-Old – 40%

“The very pinnacle of Irish whiskey, Bushmills Single Malt Whiskey 21-year-old is aged for a minimum of 19 years in former Oloroso Sherry and bourbon-seasoned casks, then married and transferred into Madeira casks for a further 2 years of aging and maturation.”

Evan’s Tasting Note

Nose: Honey, cloves, blackberries and currants, candied orange peel, waxy wine gums, roasted hazelnuts and light oak spices.

Palate: Butterscotch, mandarin orange, dried cranberries and cherries, milk chocolate, walnuts and hazelnuts, and a touch of oak spice once more.

Finish: Soft, smooth, and drying with lingering wood spice and nutty notes.

Comment: Solid Irish Whiskey. I can see why many people swear by it. It is a smooth and easy-drinking dram.

I would love to see it at 50% ABV instead of 40% (but that is always the case unless it hasn’t been watered down, so…). As it is, I wouldn’t turn down a glass of it, or a bottle as a Christmas gift. I just can’t see spending over two hundred dollars of my money on it. I hope I am in the minority for that though because we have bottles to sell!

Will tomorrow bring us something stronger? Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Evan

Playing catch-up on our 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar?

You can find the rest of the blog posts here!

This entry was posted in Whisky, Tastings, Whisky Calendars, Distillery, Tastings - Online Tasting, KWM Whisky Calendar 2024

 

 

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