Bushmills "lightly peated" malt

[PureDrop]

Reading the "Maly Whisky Yearbook 2011" , I came across the assertion that in respect of Bushmills: "Two kinds of malt are used, one unpeated and one slightly peated".
The website http://www.whiskyguild.com/irish_whiske ... leries.htm makes the same claim and an unanswered question was raised on whiskeymag http://www.whiskymag.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=429 in 2001 referring to Michael Jackson's 1987 world guide to whisky.

The Bushmills website www.bushmills.com says they use "un-peated malted barley".

... So which is true?

[varizoltan]

strange

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

I have often got a smokey something off Bushmills in the back ground however I'm not sure it is peat.

Bushmills themselves say they don't use peated malt.

The taste I get sometimes, and it is only sometimes, would be more like a coal type smoke taste.

It is usually only from the cask strength versions and as I usually only drink the sherry casks maybe it has something more to do with the shwerry casks than anything else.

Possibly a slight sulphuring and we are talking minimal as I have never got the taste of sulphur.

Interesting question though and would be nice to get to the bottom of it.

I see it as a positive anyway as I like this minor taste affect.

[IGG]

This has been in the MW Yearbook for some years. I asked Colm Egan (Master Distiler at Bush) about this last time I was up there and he said they haven't done any for many years (they might have done a bit for Hewitts way back, not sure).