Old Bushmills - Ireland's Best Single Malt Whiskey

A 21-year old single malt from Old Bushmills in Northern Ireland has been named Ireland's Best Single Malt 2017.

The single malt from Old Bushmills Distillery, produced at Bushmills village in county Antrim, was listed in the latest edition of the influential Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2017.

Bushmills Single Malt Whiskey 21year old is aged for a minimum of 19 years in former Oloroso Sherry and Bourbon-seasoned casks, then transferred into Madeira casks for a further two years.

The result is a multi-award winning whiskey. It has huge depth that interweaves dried fruit flavours with spicy, aromatic maltiness and subtle nutty raisins notes.

Old Bushmills is the world's oldest licensed distillery and traces its history back to 1608. The company is now owned by Jose Cuervo, the marketing leading producer in Mexico of tequila.

Murray, a highly respected whisky expert, tested 1,241 new samples for the latest edition of his influential guidebook.

Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2017 marks 25 years since he became the world's first full-time whisky writer and contains taste notes for around 5,000 drams.

Murray won the Glenfiddick Whisky Writer of the Year award three times.

Jim Murray's Whisky Bible is an ongoing project, with the first of the series having been published in 2003. It is a compact guide containing every whisky that Murray and a team of researchers are able to source from the worldwide market.

Each whisky is tasted by Murray alone and graded out of an overall score of 100. This total is reflective of the four key criteria: nose, taste, finish and balance, each awarded marks out of 25.

With every new edition of The Whisky Bible, Murray provides tasting notes and ratings for around 1,000 newly released or previously undiscovered whiskies, with nearly 4,000 brands being reviewed overall.

As well as writing and broadcasting on whisky, and being a chair judge at the International Wine and Spirit Competition. Murray has also worked as a consultant blender with both whisky and rum.