Bushmills New Cask Finish Range Tasting | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

On the morning of 30th July 2021, Belfast Whiskey Week opened its doors — or rather, its postal routes — with one of the most fitting sessions imaginable: an introduction to Bushmills' New Cask Finish Range. For a festival rooted in the uisce beatha traditions of Ulster, there could scarcely have been a more natural place to begin than with the Old Bushmills Distillery, a name woven so deeply into the duchas of the north coast it might as well be part of the basalt itself.

Filed: 30 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/428

About This Event

This tasting includes 3 x 50ml Samples & Glass and will take place on the 30th @ 12:00.

This tasting comprises of:

Original Blend - 40%
Rum Cask Finish Blend - 40%
American Oak Cask Finish Blend - 40%

For those in the USA, Australia, Sweden, Europe, the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland, you will be able to save on delivery costs by having your package to sent to a localised depot for collection. You will be charged a small fee upon collection, but the cost will be much cheaper than having packs delivered to individual addresses. If you would like to avail of this option, please make a note in the Special Instructions box, and we will contact you at a later date to arrange this and refund your delivery charges.

Looking Back

Session 1 set the tone for what BWW2021 would become — a festival that found a way to bring people together across continents, kitchen tables, and time zones, even as the world was still finding its feet. Three 50ml samples and a glass arrived through letterboxes from Derry to Dublin, from New York to New South Wales, each pack a quiet act of generosity and ambition. The format was simple, the experience anything but.

The three expressions under the spotlight were Bushmills Original Blend, the Rum Cask Finish Blend, and the American Oak Cask Finish Blend — all bottled at 40%. On paper, a modest line-up. In practice, a considered exercise in showing what a change of wood can do to a familiar spirit. The Original Blend served as the anchor, its light, approachable character a reminder that Bushmills is a distillery that prizes clarity and elegance over brute force. Triple distillation does that — it smooths, it refines, it lets the grain speak without shouting.

The Rum Cask Finish brought warmth to the proceedings — brown sugar, a whisper of tropical fruit, and something that felt almost sun-warmed against the cool logic of the original. The American Oak Finish, by contrast, leaned into vanilla and soft spice, the kind of finish that rewards a slow sip and a comfortable chair. Together, the three drams sketched out a conversation about how maturation shapes identity — not just for whiskey, but perhaps for places and people too. Bushmills, sitting on the edge of the Causeway Coast with the Atlantic at its shoulder, is a distillery that has always understood patience.

For those keen to go deeper into the Bushmills story, the festival offered no shortage of opportunities. Session 83: Bushmills History (MasterClass) provided the seanchas — the oral tradition, the lived knowledge — that gives those drams their full meaning, while Session 50: Bushmills Causeway Collection (MasterClass) explored the more rarefied end of the distillery's output. For newcomers wanting to build their understanding from the ground up, Session 2: Bushmills Core Malts (Introduction) offered an ideal next step after this opening session.

At £15 a head, Session 1 was one of the most accessible entry points the festival offered — and that accessibility felt deliberate. BWW has always believed that great whiskey shouldn't be the preserve of the already-converted, and an introduction tasting with three honest, characterful drams from one of Ireland's most beloved distilleries was exactly the kind of welcome mat the festival does best. Sláinte to everyone who raised a glass that July morning, wherever in the world they happened to be sitting.