Black Bush (40%)

Want to a Black Bush cocktail and six other Irish whiskeys in the lead-up to St. Patrick’s Day? Join me at Bar Hop on Peter Street in downtown Toronto on March 14 for a trip through Irish whiskey history led by yours truly. Get your tickets before they’re gone!

When I was but a novice whisky drinker, common belief had it that, because it was in Ireland’s north, Bushmills was the ‘Protestant whiskey,’ while down south, Jameson was the ‘Catholic whiskey.’ It was all rubbish, of course, but because there were only two legal distilleries on the island at the time, it stuck. I actually knew people who would only drink one or the other, depending upon their allegiances.

What is true is the fact that the company which through however crooked a path eventually became modern Bushmills was first granted a distilling licence in 1608. And if you ignore the fact that the town that gives the company its name did not have a recorded distillery until 1784, that makes Bushmills the world’s oldest licenced distillery.

Whatever ‘house character’ might be attributed to Bushmills is best experienced in the flagship, white label Bushmills Original, a rather delicate, floral, honey-ish spirit with a crisp and slightly peppery finish, a whiskey spirits scribe Dave Broom quite rightly describes as not quite classically Irish, but simply Bushmills.

Black Bush, on the other hand, represents the distillery’s bolder side, with a rich, golden hue and as much as 80% malt whiskey content. On the nose it is full and rounded, with introductory notes of green melon opening up to spice cake, date, and a hint of desiccated coconut. In the Bushmills portfolio, you’d need to skip quickly past the 10 and 12 year olds all the way to the 16 year old in order to find a whiskey with as impressively assertive an aroma.

The body likewise has significantly more weight than does the Original, with orange and toffee up front, a spicy, caramelized malt body offering notes of fruitcake and even a hint of milk chocolate on the mid-palate, and a nutty, woody, lengthy finish. Tremendous when served with a single cube of ice, it also makes a fine whiskey soda – but not too much of the soda part, please! – and can be mixed into a fair assortment of impressive cocktails.

What is most remarkable about Black Bush, however, is its price tag, which in my view makes it not just one of the best values to be found in Irish whiskey, but throughout the entire global whisky category!

92 ($40 - $45; CRITIC’S CHOICE)