Simon Wittenberg travels to the ‘spirit-ual’ home of Bushmills whiskey on the picturesque Causeway Coast in Northern Ireland to discover how time has shaped the DNA of this distillery’s remarkable history and whiskey portfolio.
Setting foot on Bushmills soil offers a remarkable glimpse of how time has framed the evolution of the world’s oldest licenced whiskey distillery. The year is 1608 when Sir Thomas Phillips was given the green light by King James to distil whiskey.
It was not however, until 1784 that the Old Bushmills Distillery was established by Hugh Anderson. In the near-250 years that have since passed, this business has witnessed significant evolution, and a fire destroying the original buildings in 1885.
Bushmills has also changed hands several times over the course of its history, passing via Irish Distillers, Diageo, and now Proximo Spirits, after the latter gave up its share of Don Julio tequila to its predecessor.
However, this distillery has always stayed true to its roots and still relies on proven technology from yesteryear, as well as on the water from Saint Columb’s Rill. It’s a tributary of the fast-flowing River Bush, which meanders its way from the North Atlantic coast over basalt rock, synonymous with the famed Giant’s Causeway, and gives Bushmills whiskey its own unique flavour profile.
Should the supply be compromised at any time, the distillery has its own on-site 100 million-litre reservoir to keep production going. In fact, Bushmills has a firm commitment to sustainability, where any biproducts don’t ever go to waste – used, for example, by nearby farmers as animal feed, and where a pledge has been made to plant 80,000 trees to offset carbon emissions.
What stands today on-site in the heart of the quaint town of Bushmills is a seamless blend between the old and the new, namely the long-standing and traditional distillery dating back centuries, which sits side-by-side with the state-of-the-art and technologically advanced, grey stone Causeway Distillery unveiled in 2023.
Thanks to a sizeable £37 million investment by the current owners, the arrival of the new facility more-than-doubled production capacity from five million to 11 million litres every year.
Within this cutting-edge 39,000-square-foot building, which pretty much involved everyone across the business for its design, it is here that the copper stills are dressed in a green hue and where the floor-to-ceiling windows reflect a mutual admiration. This is namely that the distillery represents a ‘raison d’être’ for the residents of Bushmills and a symbol of ambition, and in return, the distillery shows appreciation for the people who have given so much over the years to make the distillery and its whiskey what it is today.
Simon Wittenberg with Alex Thomas.
Guiding the evolution of the rapidly expanding Bushmills portfolio is Master Blender Alex Thomas, who joined the distillery just over 20 years ago in 2004, where her husband Steven was working, and who remains a core part of the business.
This was Alex’s first venture in the sphere of whiskey, after coming from a wood merchant, which would subsequently stand her in very good stead for the next chapter of her career.
Partly guided by personal life events and echoed by her contagious enthusiasm and excitement for all things Bushmills, Alex’s mantra is to love what you do as a profession and to make the most of every single day, as nobody knows when it will be the last.
It is what time is about, according to the Master Blender, and with such a passion for her trade, Alex explains that she is an early riser and is often first through the doors of the distillery when the dew is still lying on the grass, and where there’s a mere sound of silence in the warehouses when sampling and selecting the casks for the day’s work. This is Alex’s happy place, and is her home-from-home, even if it means being prised away as the lights go out when darkness falls at the end of the working day.
Bushmills holds half a million casks across its warehouses at any one time, which start off life exposed to the elements of a relatively wet Northern Irish climate and coastal air before they are laid to rest and breathe.
Nurturing them as the ‘caretaker’ is a never-ending task for Alex, as new ones come in, and others go out as the whiskey is bottled. In fact, the job of a Master Blender is one that is never finished, and where the skill of looking to the past, present and future simultaneously is passed from generation to generation.
The role of Master Blender is also one where the fruits of your labour form your reputation in the here and now, as well as your legacy in the history books of a distillery. The Master Blender is effectively the decision-maker for when the clock hands stop turning – calling time on a maturation process that may have lasted for years or decades and setting free a whiskey at its absolute prime.
It’s a big weight to carry on her shoulders, but Alex knows all too well that what she has at her fingertips is a historic warehouse inventory steered by many who have come before her. She, therefore, sees her role as having a debt that needs to be repaid to her predecessors through the creation of exceptional expressions that encase the Bushmills values and through laying down the foundations (i.e. the casks) for those who will follow, based on expert knowledge and intuition of how they could be transformed by her successors.
“The job of a Master Blender is one that is never finished, and where the skill of looking to the past, present and future simultaneously is passed from generation to generation.”
Carrying a price tag of £10,000, the newly released Bushmills 46-Year-Old ‘Secrets of The River Bush’ expression (shown above) is the distillery’s first foray into the world of ultra-prestige and spearheads its offering in this category. It also claims the title of the oldest-ever Irish single malt whiskey, aptly created by the longest-running distillery in the world.
It’s a fascinating story of how the 46-year-old came to be. Its origins can be traced all the way back to the 1970s, a challenging period for Irish whiskey when the Coleraine Distillery shut its doors in 1978, leaving just Bushmills and Midleton as the flagbearers for the spirit on the Emerald Isle. At the time, Bushmills was owned by Pernod Ricard, a group which later acquired Irish Distillers in the 1980s, leaving an uncertain future as to the subsequent direction of these brands.
However, in the face of adversity in 1978, and continuing to look ahead rather than standing still, Bushmills acquired several high-quality European oak casks from the family-owned Antonio Páez Lobato cooperage in Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain, previously used to house Oloroso sherry.
These were then filled with new make spirit, all on the same day, without the Master Distiller knowing at the time what whiskey would emerge, and indeed, when.
Some barrels were subsequently chosen for four-year-old blends, whilst others were laid down for longer and used across the decades that ensued.
Despite sharing similar DNA, each of the Antonio Páez casks carried their own unique heritage, stemming from factors such as what tree the timber came from, where it was situated in the forest, and what weather it was subject to during its lifetime. Similarly, the make-up of the barrel was also influenced by the thickness of the staves and how the cooper assembled it.
Amongst this group of casks sourced from Spain were two with near-identical characteristics – think inseparable twins who look alike and cannot be told apart, according to Alex. They had been left untouched over the years in one of the oldest traditional warehouses, as they were not thought to conform to the profile of the whiskey that the distillers were looking to create.
It was left to the legendary Master Blender Helen Mulholland and Master Distiller Colum Egan to conclude through the regular sampling of the liquid in these two casks that it had the potential to be an older whiskey and to be left to age gracefully.
Accompanying Alex Thomas’s journey at Bushmills since the very day that she started, the distillery’s inventory, including these two special casks, was then taken under her wings in 2021.
It was during her subsequent tenure as Master Blender in the past few years that Alex noticed a slowing of the change in terms of what the casks could ever deliver in terms of the transition of flavour and taste. It was therefore not deemed wise for them to be laid down for any longer, just for more to go the Angels’ share and for the whiskey to lose its strength (i.e. the ABV).
Hailed as ‘pure perfection’ by Alex Thomas, the 46-year-old was born, the culmination of a near five-decade wait and the hard work of the many who had meticulously cared for these casks since 1978.
Bringing the new expression to market in only three months, in March 2025 – was a relatively quick process because Alex gave the commercial team, who are responsible for marketing the product, a courtesy heads up to provide them with the time and space to organise the development of the packaging designs. This means that when the time comes for the whiskey to be bottled on-site, using glassware manufactured in nearby Enniskillen, it is ready to leave the distillery for its new owners without delay.
“Hailed as ‘pure perfection’ by Alex Thomas, the 46-year-old was born – the culmination of a near five-decade wait and the hard work of the many who had meticulously cared for these casks since 1978.”
What is also fascinating is that having been sat side-by-side for nearly half a century, the liquid in these two casks was only married together to create the 46 Year Old as it was emptied into the stainless steel vats for distribution, revealing a very apt 46.3% ABV once combined.
With just 21,000 ml (210 litres) available of this precious spirit, from what originally started off as 1,000 litres (500 per cask) in 1978, equating to a significant loss to the angels, this translated into a production run of only 300 individually numbered bottles, making them today a highly sought-after commodity.
The intimate confines of the underground Vault of the newly opened luxury five-star Dunluce Lodge hotel in Portrush, a short drive away from the distillery, set the stage for the tasting of Bushmills 46 Year Old ‘Secrets of The River Bush’, which grants an exquisite depth of colour – a sumptuous dark mahogany hue.
With the expert palate of Alex Thomas guiding the journey through the spectrum of notes that emerge from this spectacular whiskey, its rich and ripe dark fruits, delicious warm caramel, cinnamon, crushed cloves, nutmeg, and aromatic spice come to the fore, before dark cherries, as well as sundried raisins, apricot, and a wave of warm toffee, take over.
These can be further amplified when biting into a morsel of nut-coated chocolate, but this is a whiskey that leaves you wanting to reach out for a second pour in what is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. After all, it has been nearly 50 years in the making, and when it graces your palate, it is such a special moment that it can simply turn a room to an appreciative sound of silence within seconds.
As the name suggests, Bushmills 46 Year Old ‘Secrets of The River Bush’, is inspired by the importance of the flowing waters, for which the distillery owes its existence. It forms a core element of the bespoke handcrafted hexagonal presentation box, where the intricate topographical contours of the walnut case pay tribute to the River Bush, the town of Bushmills itself, and the surrounding landscape.
Lined with Alex Thomas’s signature – a proud moment for her family, the beauty of the casing is amplified through gold engraving to reflect the path of the watercourse, which has been flowing long before the area was populated and the distillery came into existence.
Whilst some of the 46 may inevitably end up on display in the hands of collectors, Alex explains that it is ultimately there to be enjoyed in all its glory across the globe, wherever this may be, and to allow connoisseurs to experience the phenomenal attributes of this very special whiskey.
Alex’s intention is also not to surpass this age statement simply because other distilleries have unveiled older expressions. It is not a race to compete with the likes of Speyside, for example, but a drive to be the very best that it can be and to create a blossoming future for the brand. This is, of course, not to say there will never be a 47-year-old or a 50 at some point, but if the casks allow such a whisky to materialise, this will then steer the distillery’s destiny.
Closing words…
It is clearly an exciting time for Bushmills as the distillery expands into the ultra-luxury segment, underlined by its core range, which makes its whiskey accessible to all.
With Alex’s formidable expertise and direction, this Irish whiskey distillery will only go from strength to strength and continue to set the bar very high in the sector, with Bushmills now sitting at the very heart of the Irish whiskey category across the globe.
Alex’s overriding mission remains – to create wonderful whiskies, and it will only be time that will guide the next chapters in the Bushmills journey and set the path for future generations.
Bushmills – Where and How?
The Bushmills distillery is located at 2 Distillery Road, Bushmills BT57 8XH, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
For more information, visit www.bushmills.com.
See highlights of our visit to Bushmills and the picturesque Causeway Coast on the Luxurious Magazine Instagram page.
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