The Sexton

Bushmills distillery was founded in 1784 (the present distillery building dates from 1885) and until relatively recently was the only surviving single malt whiskey distillery in Northern Ireland. The more famous 1608 date used by Bushmills today was adopted in the 1970s, and refers to the unrelated original grant of a licence to distil whiskey in the Bushmills area to local landowner Sir Thomas Phillips.

Bushmills became part of Irish Distillers Limited (IDL) in 1972, when Ireland’s remaining distilleries pooled their interests to avert extinction. IDL was purchased by Pernod Ricard in 1988, and Bushmills was sold in 2005 to Diageo. Bushmills was acquired by tequila company Jose Cuervo Ltd in 2014 in return for their 50% stake in Don Julio tequila. Cuervo have invested in a new stillhouse for Bushmills that will double the distillery’s capacity to around 9 million litres per annum.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.