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Written by Edward Burke
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Page 2 of 4
The distillers got their act together fairly quickly as one source tells us that “…at the end of the 1700s Bushmills produced close to 50,000 litres of whiskey [a year, I’m guessing – EB], most of which went to the US market and to the West Indies. The distillery even owned a ship, the SS Bushmills, which transported the sought-after whiskey across the Atlantic.1” Yes, indeed, years before the world knew anything about the Exxon Valdez, there was such a thing as a whiskey tanker. Most likely, this situation made for much happier penguins. In later years things went up and down, the distillery changing hands a few times, but thankfully never actually closing as many other Irish distilleries were forced to do. Most recently, they have been bought and sold by Irish Distillers and are now owned by that shower of booze peddling money-holics DIAGEO, who for the record would like to remind you to drink sensibly.
Bushmills make three main types of whiskey, aside from their special reserve editions which are too numerous and expensive for me to talk about here. The first of Bushmill’s whiskies is their flagship label, Bushmills Irish Whiskey, sometimes referred to as White Bush (largely by people who don’t actually drink much of the stuff but would like to let on they do) due to the colour of its label. In terms of make up, it’s a single malt, single grain whiskey. This means that when they’re grinding the grain for making the basic brew used for distilling (also called the beer), they use a mix of crushed malted barley and crushed non-barley grain. This grist is then mixed with “pure spring water” – if what they say is true. This mix is left in big vats where the initial beer is brewed up with the help of some yeast. This substance is then bunged into a still where the whole sloppy mess is distilled down a few times to boil off excess water and concentrate the alcohol. In Irish whiskies generally and indeed in Bushmills’ case this is done three times, or once more than most of our lazy Scottish neighbours care to do. The idea is that each time the mix goes through the still, more impurities are removed from the distillate, resulting in a purer, cleaner taste. Afterwards, the final liquid (not yet whiskey) is put into oak barrels to let it to age. The oak adds flavour to the alcohol and allows a degree of contact between whiskey and fresh air. Sufficient contact, indeed, that a portion of the liquid actually evaporates in the process. The liquid lost is called the Angel’s Share.
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