People get very hot under the collar when it comes to whiskey claims.
But it is an indisputable fact that the world’s first official whiskey licence was granted to Sir Thomas Phillips for the production of aqua vitae (Gaelic for whiskey) in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on 20th April 1608.
The details of the licence were very geographically specific, encompassing County Coleraine to the west of the River Bann and the area known as the Route, marked by the River Bush, where The Old Bushmills Distillery now stands.
‘A like License granted to Sir Thomas Phillips, Kt. for 7 years, within the County of Colrane, otherwise called O’Cahane’s Country, or within the Territory or Country called the Rowte, Co. Antrim. Rent 13s 4d Irish. April 20, 1608’.
Sir Thomas was a fascinating character. He was born into a rich aristocratic English family but chose to become a soldier of fortune, fighting abroad for most of his formative years. When ‘fortune’ brought him to Ireland, he was rather euphemistically called a ‘military adventurer’ but in reality was a military enforcer for King James I. His role was to help the new king, who had effectively already united the kingdoms of England & Scotland with his coronation, rid Northern Ireland of Catholic ‘rebels’. He was a formidable soldier, and a huge asset for the Crown forces, capturing many strategically important towns and ruthlessly putting down any uprisings. His military prowess essentially led to the Flight of the Earls in 1607, when the remaining Irish chieftains fled into permanent exile, effectively ending the old Gaelic order.
With his military duties fulfilled, he was handsomely rewarded with territory and influence. Using Coleraine as his base, he ‘acquired’ forts and prime parcels of land left by the displaced lords. He was knighted in March 1607 and became governor of Coleraine in January 1608, which meant several lucrative licences were also bestowed on him by the Crown, like running a market in Coleraine and operating the river ferries. He clearly held some serious sway with the king’s court, for he was given the first ever licence to distil whiskey the same year too.
Of course, whiskey in Ireland had been around much earlier than 1608. The world’s first written reference to whiskey distillation is from the Red Book of Ossory, penned by monks in Ireland in 1324, the spirit created as a remedy for the Black Death, a plague that was sweeping Europe.
The first written record of the word ‘whiskey’ appears in the Irish Annals of Clonmacnoise in 1405, where it was written that the head of a clan died after “taking a surfeit of aqua vitae” at Christmas (some party!). A century and a half later, during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, records tell us that in a statute as early as 1566, she had been concerned about Irish whiskey over-consumption, leading to an act called “To prevent the making of aqua vitae”, which had some strong words to say about using key ingredients for distilling rather than cooking. Here’s a taster of the language:
"Foreasmuch as aqua vitae, a drink nothing profitable to be daily drunken and used, is now universally, throughout this realm of Ireland made, especially in the borders of the Irishry, and for the furniture of Irishmen, and thereby much corn, grain and other things is consumed, spent and wasted; to the great hindrance, cost, and damage of the poor inhabitants of this realm.”
She essentially went on to order that ‘no person but peers’ should make whiskey without a licence, a cause which was taken up by James I, her son, when he granted the first licence to Sir Thomas Phillips.
As we can see by the statute, whiskey was widely enjoyed (often too much!). It was strong stuff, straight from the still, nothing like the aged smooth Irish whiskey of today, and the quality was always a bit inconsistent (it was sometimes flavoured with things like aniseed or raisins, which gave it a yellow-brown colour).
It's a fact that’s verified by the wonderfully named Fynes Moryson, who was Chief Secretary to Sir Charles Blount, Lord-Deputy in Ireland, from 1601 to 1606. He kept voluminous diaries of all his many travels but wrote positively of Irish whiskey:
“The Irish aqua vitae, vulgarly called usquebagh, is held the best in the world of that kind, which is made also in England, but nothing so good as that which is brought out of Ireland. And the usquebagh is preferred before our aqua vitae, because the mingling of raisins, fennel seed, and other things, mitigating the heat, and making the taste pleasant, makes it less inflame, and yet refresh the weak stomach with moderate heat and good relish.”
There is a story of whiskey being used to revive divers on the Irish Causeway Coast, a stone’s throw from the current Bushmills Distillery, in the 16th century too.
When the great Spanish Armada, formed of 141 mighty warships, came to invade England, they were scuppered by bad luck and bad weather. The fleet was dispersed and floundered at various points along the French and Irish coasts. One such ship, a galleass called La Girona (a galleass was a warship that combined the sails and cannons of a galleon with the manoeuvrability of an oared galley) sank off Lacada Point, County Antrim, now known as the Chimney Stacks by the Giant’s Causeway, a World Heritage Site. It had been caught in a ferocious gale on the night of 26th October 1588 and all but nine of the 1,300 people on board were lost – a tragedy of epic proportions. But where does whiskey fit in?
The year after, a salvage operation was conducted by the Crown, under the watchful eye of Sir George Carew, to locate the treasure La Girona was supposedly carrying. Happily, he kept a meticulous diary. On 22nd June 1589 he wrote to Sir William Fitzwilliam, the Lord Deputy General:
“Already we have salvaged three pieces of artillery of brass. Yesterday we fastened our hawsers to a cannon of battery or basalyke, as we supposed by the length, for they lie at four fathom and a half of water, which was so huge that it break our cables. Our diver was nearly drowned, but Irish aqua vitae hath such virtues as I hope for his recovery.”
Sir George later also complained at the expense “of sustaining the divers with copious draughts of usequebaugh [whiskey]”.
Bushmills village, as it is now known, was originally called Portcaman, a small settlement next to the more thriving Dunluce Castle, the seat of the ever-feuding Clan MacDonnell, which was destroyed during the 1641 uprising.
Bushmills came to more prominence, and its new name, with the emerging ‘water power’ industries – the mills used for corn, flax and whiskey, amongst others.
Whiskey-making at Bushmills became more and more famous as the years passed. As well as being associated with the 1608 license, there are multiple subsequent references to Bushmills, including the date 1743, which Alfred Barnard (who wrote the first comprehensive book on UK distilleries in 1880s) said: “No doubt the oldest distillery in Ireland is in the year 1743 when it was in the hands of smugglers.”
The Old Bushmills Distillery can certainly claim to be the longest continually operating whiskey distillery in Ireland (and therefore the world).
In Scotland, LittleMill Distillery has paperwork that proves it was granted a licence to distil in 1773. Glenturret, often regarded as Scotland’s oldest working distillery, was founded in 1775. The Glenlivet, which claims in advertising to be the “single malt that started it all”, got its licence in 1824. In Ireland, Kilbeggan claims 1757 (but ceased production in 1953), and also promoted itself to be the “second oldest distillery in Ireland” in an advertisement on 23rd February 1907. Jameson claims a foundation date of 1780.
But what became of Sir Thomas Phillips? After the highs of 1608, with his licence to distil Irish whiskey, he fell on less fortunate times. He became mired in feuds, infighting, legal wrangling, plots and suffered a general fall from grace, which left him practically penniless. He died at Hammersmith, west London, in August 1636.
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