The Giant’s Causeway is located in Country Antrim, just north of the town of Bushmills, which also happens to be where the Bushmillls Distillery is located. How lucky are we?

Bushmillls was granted a license to make and distribute whiskey in 1608, making it the oldest distillery in Northern Ireland and — according to their marketing department — the oldest distillery in the world.

We had originally planned on only visiting the eatery, but when we arrived we found that they were no longer serving food, so we decided to try and secure two spots on the 12:30PM tour, which we did.

Bushmillls is a completely closed operation, meaning they take in the grains used in the whiskeys and ship out filled bottles (called a “G&G” operation for “grains & glass”) from that one, singular location to destinations around the world. We were able to follow the production from the arrival of the grains through to the bottling workshop floor, and even saw several boxes on the palettes which were bound for Mexico.

After the tour we were released into the bar where we each had one whiskey of our choice: a 10 year single malt, their “Black Bush” which is a blended whiskey aged in a cask which once contained Spanish Oloroso sherry, and a 12 year “Special Reserve” which is only served at the bar and isn’t sold in bottles. I had the 12 year, and Isabelle got the 10 year which she gave to me.

The 10 year was good, but the 12 year was smooth with only a little burn at the end. Amazing.