Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

Some evenings at Belfast Whiskey Week linger in the memory long after the last dram is poured, and Session 50 — the Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass — was very much one of those occasions. Held on the 30th of July 2021 at the civilised late hour of 10pm, this was an intimate, unhurried deep-dive into six of Bushmills' most elusive single malts, each one a market exclusive, each one a conversation in a glass. For anyone who believes that the uisce beatha of County Antrim deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as the world's finest whiskeys, this session was the evidence they had been waiting for.

Filed: 30 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/268

About This Event

This tasting includes 6 x 35ml Samples & Glass and will take place on the 30th @ 22:00.

This tasting comprises of:

2010 Cognac Cask, 10 Years 46% (Germany exclusive)
2008 Duoro Cask, 12 Years 46% (Portugal exclusive)
2008 Muscatel Cask, 12 years 56.4% (Ireland exclusive)
2001 Feuillette Cask, 19 years 49% (The Whisky Shop exclusive)
1990 New American Oak, 30 years 48.4% (Dublin and Cork Airport travel exclusive)
1995 Malaga Cask, 25 years 53.5% (Ireland exclusive)

Tasting packs will be posted out to you, but may not arrive in time for the tastings. If you wish to collect the pack in Belfast to ensure you have it in time, please contact grace@belfastwhiskeyweek.com after you order.

Looking Back

The Causeway Collection is Bushmills at its most exploratory — a series born from the distillery's vast warehouses on the North Antrim coast, where the sea air and the particular duchas of that landscape work quietly on maturing spirit over years and decades. Each release in the collection is finished in a single, distinctive cask type and allocated exclusively to a specific market, meaning that to encounter all six in a single sitting is genuinely rare. Session 50 offered exactly that, and it was not a privilege that went unappreciated.

The lineup spanned more than three decades of distillation, opening with the youngest of the six — a 2010 Cognac Cask aged ten years, bottled at 46% as a German exclusive — and working its way through a 2008 Duoro Cask from Portugal, a 2008 Muscatel Cask at a robust 56.4% bottled for the Irish market, and a 2001 Feuillette Cask at 19 years, available only through The Whisky Shop. The evening then elevated into genuinely rare territory: a 1995 Malaga Cask at 25 years, another Irish exclusive bottled at 53.5%, and the undisputed crown of the session — a 1990 New American Oak, a full 30 years old at 48.4%, released as a Dublin and Cork Airport travel exclusive. To taste that whiskey outside of an airport departures lounge felt almost transgressive, in the very best way. The seanchas of thirty years was written all over it.

What distinguished this MasterClass from a straightforward tasting was the quality of guidance on offer. Participants were led carefully through the story of each cask — the provenance of the wood, the characteristics of the wine or spirit it had previously held, and the way that influence had woven itself into the Bushmills spirit over time. Bushmills is one of the world's oldest licensed distilleries, and it carries that history lightly but honestly; the Causeway Collection is where that confidence in long maturation really shows. Those curious to explore how it sits within the broader Bushmills story might also enjoy looking back at Session 83: Bushmills History (MasterClass), which offered a more expansive look at the distillery's remarkable lineage across BWW 2021.

The format for 2021 remained the hybrid model that the festival had adapted to with characteristic resourcefulness — tasting packs posted out to participants across Ireland and beyond, with the option to collect in Belfast for those who wanted to be certain they had their samples in hand before the session began. Six 35ml samples and a glass arrived in each pack, a modest-seeming set of vessels that contained, in total, something close to an extraordinary survey of what fine Irish single malt whiskey can become when given time and the right wood. For those who wanted to extend their evening into broader Bushmills territory, Session 2: Bushmills Core Malts and the Bushmills Cask Strength Mini-MasterClass offered complementary angles on the same great distillery.

At £200, Session 50 asked something of its attendees — but it gave back generously. This was not a casual dram; it was a considered, late-night encounter with whiskeys that most people will never encounter individually, let alone together. Sláinte to everyone who pulled up a chair for it.