Stage 1 Mashing

The first step is to take malted barley grains and grind them to a coarse flour, or 'grist' to use the distiller's word. We use un-peated malted barley. That means it's dried with hot air rather than over a peat fire. And that’s why our whiskey is free from the smoky flavour sometimes found in other whiskies.

This grist is mixed with hot water in a large mixing vessel, or a mash tun, to produce a sweet liquid called 'wort'. The sugars in the wort are essential in obtaining alcohol in the next stage.

Stage 2 Fermentation

Yeast is added to the sweet, malty liquid (wort), which triggers alcoholic fermentation. That’s when the wort's sugars turn into alcohol.

Fermentation takes place in washbacks, the large fermentation vessels, pictured here, and produces an alcoholic liquid similar to malty ale, called 'wash', with a strength of around 8% alcohol by volume.

Stage 3 Distillation

This is where we obtain our first spirit or 'Baby Bushmills’ as our Master Distiller Colum calls it. It's one of the most delicate operations in the process: bringing the wash to the boil to separate alcohol and other flavours from water.

This happens traditionally, in copper pot stills whose size and shape influence the character of the whiskey-to-be.

We have nine relatively small stills with tall, slender necks in which we triple distill our whiskey - typical of Irish whiskey. And this combination produces a lighter, smoother type of spirit.

But no-matter how skilled, a distiller can never make whiskey in the still-house alone. The new-make spirit needs to mature in oak casks for at least three years.

Stage 4 Maturation

Maturation in oak casks is critcal to the Bushmills taste. A poor cask will turn a good spirit into a mediocre whiskey. So we mature our whiskey as carefully as we distil it. That means selecting the best American oak barrels, Spanish Sherry casks, even former Port, Madeira or Rum barrels. All sourced from selected cooperages, bodegas and distilleries.

So we've put our carefully triple-distilled spirit in the finest oak casks, and we've waited five, ten, fifteen years. Or more. But still we don't have Bushmills whiskey. We still have to ensure that whenever someone opens a bottle of Bushmills it tastes as they would expect it to. We need to maintain a consistent flavour.

Stage 5 Blending

The blending team checks quality throughout production. Including paying visits to Spain and Portugal to select the casks we'll use.

The blending stage involves combining different casks of whiskey to find the right flavour. For example, casks of malt whiskey are carefully blended to ensure there’s a consistent Bushmills flavour. While malt with grain spirits are mixed for a blended whiskey.

At Bushmills, we make both blends and malts, which is pretty unusual in the world of whiskey, but you might have gathered by now that Bushmills is no ordinary distillery.

Stage 6 Bottling

All stages of the whiskey-making process are carried out on the same site at Bushmills. That includes the final stage, bottling.

We're the only 'grain to glass' distillery in Ireland. In fact, we're one of only a few in the world.

But that ensures unique quality control and attention to the finest details in every drop. And this in turn, helps ensure Bushmills whiskeys are consistently the best.