The "Old Bushmills" Distillery Company

When Diageo took over Bushmills distillery from Pernod Ricard three years ago, sales volumes had been flat for over 10 years. The new owners set a goal to reach 1 million cases by the end of 2012. This is an admirably bold aim, considering that current sales are... 400,000 cases per year. To achieve the goal, major investments (£6 million) have been made in both marketing and in the distillery itself. A new lauter mash tun was installed in 2007, a new (10th) still is scheduled for September 2008 and a new maturation warehouse (the 11th) is also being built. When taking over, Diageo increased the production rate to five days a week and since 2008 they have implemented a seven-day week. This has tripled the production in just 2.5 years. Bushmills uses two kinds of malt, one unpeated and one slightly peated. The distillery uses triple distillation, which is the traditional Irish way, contrary to Cooley which uses double distillation. They have four wash stills and five spirit stills and the whiskey is matured and bottled on site. Bushmills´ core range of single malts consists of a 10 year old, a 16 year old Triple Wood with a finish in port pipes for 6-9 months and a 21 year old finished in Madeira casks for two years. There is also a 12 year old Distillery Reserve which is sold exclusively at the distillery. There used to be several single casks as well but they have all been discontinued. Black Bush and Bushmills Original are the two main blended whiskeys in the range. To celebrate the 400th anniversary, a Bushmills 1608 Anniversary Edition was launched. The malt whiskey part was distilled using a proportion of crystal malt (malted barley which has been dried at a high temperature whilst the grains are still moist, thus partly converting the grain’s starch into sugars and caramelising them). This special ingredient gives the blend distinct toffee/chocolatey notes. The grain whiskey used for Bushmills blended whiskeys is bought from Midleton distillery in Cork which is owned by arch rival Pernod Ricard. Bushmills is the only working distillery in Ireland open to the public and it receives more than 100,000 visitors per year.

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