Bushmills 21
After 19 years in Oloroso and bourbon barrels, followed by 2 years more in Madeira casks, comes a Single Malt with layers of rich stewed fruits and festive spices.
This is the oldest vintage in the Bushmills single malt range. After 21 years in cask, it has taken on an incredibly rich and complex flavour profile that helps it stand out among other Irish single malts.
Produced at the Old Bushmills distillery in County Antrim, it has a deep mahogany colour that is created by spending 19 years in a combination of bourbon seasoned casks and oloroso sherry casks before a two-year finish in madeira wine casks. Its years in madeira have given it lots of subtle nutty raisin notes as well as an aromatic maltiness.
Tasting notes
Aroma
The aroma of Bushmills 21 year old is laden with honey and ripe fruit as well as sweet hazelnuts.
Taste
On the palate you will find how elegantly it interweaves dried fruit flavours with the dark mocha and toasted wood, dark chocolate and rich toffee of the single malt.
Finish
All this rich flavour and personality leads to a wonderfully long finish that isn’t overly woody but carries lots of dried fruits, spicy pepper, sweet hazelnuts and tobacco leaf.
Cask influence
In a younger whiskey, the influence of the three casks might struggle to interweave, but this bottle and the time it was matured for have created huge depth. The combination of the former oloroso sherry casks and bourbon is well practiced in this single-malt whiskey region but the addition of the madeira has brought something very special to this malt.
Madeira is a Portuguese fortified wine that is made on the Madeira islands just off the coast of Africa. It ranges from very dry and light to dark and sweet and the casks used here are on the sweeter side. The colour of Bushmills 21 single malt is an attractive deep mahogany that comes from both former bourbon and oloroso casks.
Bushmills themselves suggest this single malt is served neat. The people who make it prefer that you don’t add anything that might dilute the flavour or change the appearance or texture of this single malt Irish whiskey. However, the international rule of whiskey is that, once you’ve bought it, the bottle is yours and you can mix or serve it as you please.
Awards
Bushmills 21-year-old has been one of the most successful in its category. It has won international spirits awards as well as many national medals. It is considered to be the very pinnacle of the Bushmills range, capturing in one bottle all the complexity and experimentation of this centuries old distillery.
Bushmills is officially the oldest distillery in the world, having received its license to distil in 1608. While the distillery has changed a lot since then – especially in ownership, the tradition and heritage of the brand remains. The water still comes from the same tributary of the Bushmills River and the old stone maturation houses are used in the same way today as they were more than a century ago.