Bushmills 10 Year Old

This has grown on me. No peat, subtle,well made and good quality. Its not the most distinctive whiskey but it is one of my favorites. It is often my first whiskey of the night. Do try it.

...when drinking this whiskey. Great “bang for the buck” whiskey, one of the best ones out there I dare to say. Cheap, yet sophisticated. So of course the movie Trading Places comes to my mind and will go as the reference.

Nose: Sweet and fruity, also gives you of eucalyptus at the start. Toffee dominates and hints of floral notes are present as well. Bourbon casks are clearly giving the stronger note. Water adds cinnamon and notes of fruitcake.

Taste: Creamy toffee kicks off the show and stays until the very end. Sweet, wee floral and very fruity. Water adds spicy notes, which make this dram work even better.

Finish: Lingers well, smooth, yet crispy from time to time. Toffee and hints of honey. Oak tannins are strong in the aftertaste and water makes it stronger.

Balance: Got this with price tag of 25 euros so surely this is one of the best "bang for bucks" as I mentioned before. In good balance, offers no big surprises, but gives you a steady ride.

Two of my good buddies are partial to blended Irish whiskey. They like it for its approachability and tend to shy away from whisk(e)y that is too complex. I picked this up to see if it would appeal to them, and it did.

Nose: Vanilla, sherry, custard, cereals

Taste: Floral, vanilla, banana, crème brulee

Finish: dry, tannic, cheddah

It's not easy to get Irish single malt in these parts. And I wish there were more of it available here. This is gentle. The flavours come and go fast.

Triple distilled and matured in two woods, presumably American oak and sherry casks as the 16 year old, but without the finishing.

A golden coloured dram with an appetising nose replete with juicy malt and vanilla, supported by a range of fruity hints from pear, papaya, mango and lime. There is a pleasing amount of body to this malt and no unpleasant alcohol burn, it really is very easy going. The flavours are also very accessible and easy going containing spicy fruity flavours and a malty backbone. Hints of vanilla, pear, bran, cinnamon, coal gas, mild coffee, fenugreek seeds and papaya. The malty sweetness shines through on the finish drying slowly as a satisfying if uneventful climax.

This is a very appetising and easy going malt which I heartily approve of. A colleague of mine in a previous job professed to only like peaty strongly flavoured whisky. On the summit of a charity mountain climb in Snowdonia on a very pleasant summer day I offered this colleague a sip of my hip flask which contained some Glenmorangie original, they were blown away by the flavours of what they considered a bland malt. Bushmills 10y reminded me of that experience during this tasting as it’s a similar malt to Glenmorangie original in many ways, easy going and very flavourful.

The 10 Year Old single malt is matured in both bourbon barrels and Oloroso sherry casks.

The colour is a medium honey (pretty much identical to the Original blend). On the nose, crisp malt, light honey, green apples, dry hay, anise and cardamom. That briny character is there, with the barley sugar. The too-young grain found in the Original blend is gone - all the other qualities are very similar. Very clean and refreshing, especially with water.

The palate starts off fairly nondescript, but then the buttered pastry shows up, with white pepper, liquorice, milk chocolate and green tea. Simple and straightforward, but quite nice. Water brings out more malt, spice and apple skins.

The medium-length finish is warm with apples, honey, kosher salt and a very faint whiff of smoke (which is strange as this is unpeated). More mature and complex than the standard blend: the house character of honey and apples are there but the 10 year old malt has much more oomph. Delicious!

Pale amber, light in viscosity, This Irish whiskey is very light and mellow. Maybe too mellow for someone who is used to drinking scotch. The mouth feel is thin. The predominant flavors are vanilla, malt with cereals like corn flakes and oats in the background. Subtle lemon with slight herbal notes. Finishes with a short, subtle white pepper tingle. As you can see, I mention subtle quite a few times, but this is how it really is.In my opinion, this can easily be the quintessential starter whiskey.

Bushmills 10 yr is from the only distillery in Northern Ireland. With history stretching back to 1608 they have a heritage to be proud of.

This is an easy to drink crowd pleaser. It is simple, light and goes down very easily. Whilst that is all good, it means it lacks depth and complexity if that it what you seek.

Nose is light, fruity, sweet with banana. On the palate it is clean, fruity and smooth. Floral and easy drinking. You can tell it has been triple distilled. The finish is short but moreish.

On a summers evening you could go through a bottle with friends very easily.

NOSE: very gentle and fresh; creamy, a bit of citrus (lemon, lime), banana bread, ripe banana skin, apples, slightly floral, a touch of cocoa powder.

TASTE: smooth, moderately sweet, fruity, malty, vanilla, Irish coffee, a very remote note of bitter citrus pith.

FINISH: brief and slightly dry vanilla at the end.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: a nice dram when you want something simple and fruity! Funnily enough, it reminds me a tiny bit of Glenmorangie Original with its elegant nose and sort of similar package of flavors. However, Bushmills' lovely uncomplex Irishness is too evident to mistake it for a Scotch whisky. In my opinion, its gentle character is ideal for fragrant hot toddies and Irish coffee!

I visited the Bushmills Distillery in 2009, and since then I didn't even taste the 10 years classic Bushmills. About the Distillery... I recommend to visit it! Awesome. Especially when you get the chance to have a fire starting while visiting! That was a small fire and no building/people were injured and finally we got an extra drink free! Ok, back to the whiskey. Nose: very nice, delicate, too delicate? Subtle floral note (rose?) and vanilla, a touch of calvados (I said "apple" in the tags). When tasting, there is a small green peppercorn note that comes in mouth and saturate a bit everything, but it disappears soon. Honey, Apple again? The finnish is green peppercorn and then the sweetness comes with a hint of honey.

I like it. It's an easy whiskey, easy to drink, easy to taste. It has the softness of a kiss of Ireland.

There is something they say about the Bushmills whiskey: it makes the best lamb! Because the sheep eats the Barley once it's used for the whiskey. And the Bushmills Barley makes the sheeps happy while the whiskey makes you happy.

I've decided to taste Bushmills 10 yo after enjoying magnificent Black Bush. Expectations were high as this is a next step (single malt) after a blended whiskey. So, on to tasting.

Nose: toffee, coffee, milk chocolate, raisins, sherry. Very nice.

Palate: dry malt sweetness, green fruit, pear, coffee, hints of oak. I'd say nose promises a bit more that I got from a taste.

Finish: Not quite long. Not complex. Toffee, caramel, coffee with chocolate.

Adding water does no good. Taste just washes out.

Conclusion: this is no bad whiskey at all. Very aromatic and drinkable. But I was expecting more. Maybe due to Black Bush that I seem to like more.

Smooth from the triple distillation obviously this not peated, lots of sweet chocolate,honey with plenty of vanilla and sherry.

Ideal intro to single malts for a non-whiskey drinker.

Continuing in my st-paddy's day's theme I went to my favorite liquor store and bought a bottle of 10 years old bushmills. I usually go for the 1608 original bush, but felt like going a bit older this time.

On the nose, it's apple. Baked apple, fresh apple, calvados. Some orange peel. I also get quite bit from the sherry cask: chocolate, ripened grapes, wood. I'm quite impressed so far.

On the palate, the initial hit is quite balanced: neither too sweet, nor too dry. But then, it starts to develop. You get the sweetness of malt and corn, that turns into something like milk chocolate, then strawberry, then classic malt. Finally we get the wood notes of spices and a touch of corn and flowers.

The milk chocolate comes back for the finish but then leaves a very pleasant dryness.

Further nosing reveals some vanilla

There's also a bitterness that comes in the after taste: like lime zest and apple peel. with a just a bit of metal.

All in all, it is better then the regular bush. But not by much. The nose is what impresses me the most. It's got something Clynelish about it. Which, to me is quite good. Some diageo connection there? Probably more to do with the quality of the malt and yeast used.

In Quebec, the 10 YO goes for about 1.5 X more CAD then the original. So the original one is to me the best option with so much bang for the buck. But I would love to try the black bush, because of all the goodness from the olorosso cask. Was able to detect in that one. I can only surmise that all sherry would be even better. Unfortunately, no black in Quebec. Anybody willing to send a sample?

As a side note, blending it with a Laphroaig quarter cask (don't tell the SWA) results in a fantastic dram. I call it my Keltic Knot. You get something like very good Irish or Normandy butter, with a touch of seaweed with a good touch of creamy sweetness. And the wood gets some good action as well. The apple is there. Definitely Normandy. Great stuff! My girlfriend who usually frowns at my islay malts can't get enough of it. The metal notes get buried in the wood spices and smoke.

Nose, Taste, Finish and Balance are graded out of 2.5 each:

Nose: An open fruit basket from the off, with a sprinkle of roses on top just for good measure. A few strands of liquorice can be found woven in between the pears, grapes, peaches and bananas, all of which are giving off an intense aroma as they ferment in the sun. Some honey is drizzled on top just to douse the resultant smoke, leaving us to enjoy a densely sweet nose of sublimely fortified fruit. 2.5

Taste: The pear and grape really break away from the crowd here, with the pear having the most to say, before the honey diplomatically interrupts and allows some green peppercorn and chocolate nougat to come into the picture, adding some very lusciously soft depth to the palate. 2.0

Finish: The spice from the green peppercorn has really caught up with the pear at this stage, and they're going at it neck and neck. The richness of the pear eventually envelopes the spice and acts as a silencer to the green peppercorn bullet, but there's still some smoke in the air as the honeyed finish comes to a close. 2.0

Balance: Bushmills truly are a class act. Bushmills Black Bush is comfortably one of the great blends to be found anywhere in the world of whisky, and the Bushmills 16 is a luxurious sipping malt that can go pound for pound with any of Speyside's finest. But as a standard distillery bottling, the Bushmills 10 is the one that really grabs the headlines for me. If I was to be sent into space and had to take only 10 whiskies with me, then this would certainly be pushing for a place. Effortlessly complex, sumptuously sweet, and reassuringly replenishable, this is an exquisite every day malt. 2.5

Not a bad whisky at all, considering that my colleague Heiko and I drank a whole bottle (he 25%, me the rest) to celebrate an event going well. The next day, however, neither of us had a headache. I'm sure that counts for something?

Anyway, the sherry this time around makes a much better impression that, say, two years back. Quite fruity and full. A touch of port in the finish. Very subtle nose, in my opinion. Very good dram for - no offense - beginners.