Bushmills 21 Year Old Whiskey

Just had a glass in a pub in Portrush and was very impressed.Its the only Irish whiskey that even comes close to Scottish single malts.

It’s the age old problem with old malts, tannins and of the strong oaky type. The whisky is nice if you can ignore the flavour as if you’ve been sucking on a lump of wet of oak. It shows it’s cask age to well even for a 21 year old. It’s got some lovely flavours but nowhere is there tobacco just oak neither is there “chewy dates” as Master Of Malt said. (I think they are selling it a little to hard there) we know supposedly it’s a good dram from its awards but I hasten to think that was a few hundred batches ago like 10 years ago when the batches were not as tannin rich may be ? Or may be a few good batches ? In any case I’ve found some nice flavours but those tannins are strong and immediately over power the other flavours because you just get a quick smack in the face with lovely sweet apricot like flavours and then the oak keeps building and building until you get that dry oakyness (if thats a word) on the sides of your tongue that you wouldn’t be wrong to reach for the mouthwash to not endure it anymore. May be a 17 Y/O would be better but for now this just falls flat on it’s face what a let down and for an expensive dram it just does not deliver the goods so my rating will reflect this value for money disparage.

It’s 40% and likely chill filtered, if you’re used to even 46% bottlings this is going to disappoint. Decent but never better than that, I would certainly not buy it again, too boring and smooth and lacking anything special.

Would have been even better with high strength bottling. A 21-year-old bottle should be bottled at higher strength.

This is Heaven in a bottle! a beautifully complex taste with an exceptionally smooth delivery! Incredible!

Perfect ! Neat only, nothing back!

A very nice relaxing enjoyable whiskey after a lovely desert.

Very smooth finnish, delightful after taste. A single malt that completes a evening and allows you to drift off into a diffrent world wonderful.

Perfection

This could be the best whisky I have ever tried. It shouldn't be. It doesn't fit the description of the whiskies I tend to love. None of that matters, however. It is phenomenally smooth and complex. It's just incredible. It might sound silly to say but it feels like a bargain at that price. I have paid more for much less.