My grandfather and generations of his family were born and raised in Northern Ireland, a stone’s throw from the Giant’s Causeway on the North Antrim coast, the river Bush and its namesake distillery, Bushmills. Bushmills Irish Whiskey was therefore a mainstay in my grandparent’s house. ‘Poppa’ George would always have his evening glass or ‘taoscán’ and when we came up to visit, he’d share one with my dad. The aroma is an early memory of the two of them that I will carry happily forever.
This year, I am toasting them both with a very special whiskey from Bushmills: The Causeway Collection 1991 Madeira Cask.
Bushmills & The Causeway Collection
Bushmills is the world’s oldest licensed distillery with an incredible 400 year history of producing single malt, Irish whiskies with expertise passed down through many generations. It won the only gold medal for whiskey at the famous Paris Expo in 1889 and survived Prohibition, the barley taxes of the 1850’s and even a devastating fire around the same time. Today, it is still a world class distillery with a range of whiskies sought out all over the globe.
The Causeway Collection represents an exceptional range, where whiskeys are left to finish in special casks for a particularly long length of time. The result is an assortment of concentrated and complex whiskies, each offering multiple layers of delicious flavour as dramatic, they say, as their beloved Giant’s Causeway and the County Antrim coastline on their doorstep.
The Causeway Collection 1991 Madeira Cask
Initially launched in November 2021, only 738 bottles of this limited-edition, thirty year old Madeira cask whiskey are available in Great Britain. It has seen more than thirteen years of maturation in oloroso sherry butts and ex-bourbon casks before enjoying an unrivalled maturation period of fifteen years in first-fill Madeira casks. The result is a deeply flavoured, silky smooth single malt whiskey with a sweet and saline character, notes of stone fruit and moch with a touch of creamy praline.
Find it exclusively at The Whisky Shop
Don’t forget, you can see the Giant’s Causeway in all its glory at the start of episode one of The Three Drinkers in Ireland, now streaming in Amazon Prime!