© Provided by City AM Bushmills has the largest collection of single malt whiskey on the island of Ireland. From its 400,000 or so barrels, Master Blender Helen Mulholland has been carefully monitoring the development of select casks to create their new Causeway Collection.
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Helen began working at the Bushmills distillery as an intern in the early 1990s, and during that time she laid down several of the whiskeys that now make up the Causeway Collection. The Collection is the culmination of a 15-year project, intended to showcase some of the distillery's rare casks and it includes some of "Bushmills' greatest treasures".
This array of unique single malts takes its name from the Giant's Causeway, a geological wonder - and UNESCO World Heritage Site - that sits on the coast of Antrim just north of the distillery, and has for centuries fired the imagination of local residents and visitors alike.
The Giant's Causeway is a jumble of hexagonal basalt stacks extending into the sea. Prosaically, they are the vestiges of the eruption of an ancient volcanic fissure, but the presence of similar columns on the Hebridean island of Staffa, gave rise to the legend that the rocks were the remnants of a crossing built and destroyed by feuding giants.
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This landscape also shapes Bushmills' whiskey, as the water of St Columb's Rill, which is used in the spirit's production, is hardened with small quantities of calcium and magnesium acquired as it passes first through limestone, and then the same basalt that forms the Giant's Causeway.
The Causeway Collection includes ten different triple-wood matured expressions of Bushmills single malt, which will be made available in nine different territories by the end of this year.
The exclusive offering for this market is a 2001 Feuillette Cask. With a warming 49% ABV, it is the first cask strength release and first red wine cask-matured whiskey that Bushmills has made available in Great Britain. It was aged for over 17 years in Oloroso sherry butts and bourbon barrels, before a final maturation of more than two years in a rare Feuillette cask from Burgundy.
Bushmills only has four of these casks, and this expression was finished in the smallest of them, holding just 168 bottles. The flavour has the sweet vanilla characteristic of Bushmills, and layered on top it has the delightfully fruity intensity of a Sauterne-finished single malt. However, instead of honeyed apricots or peaches, this whiskey is bursting with vibrant blackberries and cherries.
The 2001 Feuillette Cask can only be purchased from the Whisky Shop, and when it went on sale on their website last week, it sold out in 2 minutes. But the remaining bottles are going to be available this week, in Whisky Shop stores around the UK, and that provides an opportunity to snap up a bargain, because priced at just £200 for 700ml, a treasure hunter could scarcely hope to find a more delectable collectible.
Click here for more information about the Causeway Collection.
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