Bushido’s Bushmills Bacchanal

The first thing you should know is that I’m not a golfer. So when I found myself in golf heaven on the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland, I was a little lost for pleasure. My uncle and my father were hell-bent to play the Royal Portrush course and not wanting to be stuck behind at the "caravan" (a nice-sounding term for a trailer park), I decided I would tag along for the change of scenery.

At that time, you should know, the state of the BBC wasn’t what it is now, and the Irish LOVE to talk, so I was faced with either four hours of cricket on TV or the incessant blathering of my beloved relatives. The idea was to place a club in my hand and walk around the course. I figured, what-the-hell at least they have a beer tent on golf courses don’t they?

Probably the next thing you need to know is that there are two kinds of people in Ireland. Tea-totallers and heavy drinkers. My Dad’s side of the family are the former. I had brought up the idea of a beer tent in the ride from the caravan to the golf course and from the reaction you would have thought I’d suggested sleeping with my sister.

Well things were a bit frosty from that point on until we passed by the town of Bushmills and my uncle had a brilliant idea. Why don’t we dump out the heathen bastard here where he can congress with the Devil safely out of sight and mind? A compromise was reached wherein I would drive back in the Renault (WREN-oh) after they had unloaded their gear at the golf course.

Fine and dandy, I know how to pilot a right hand drive car and the trip was a nice scenic jaunt along the rugged cliffs of the Antrim Coast. I get to the distillery and enquire about the tour schedule (shed-jewel). I’m told by a very nice Irish lady that there is no shed-jewel on Saturdays, but a group of fellow uncouth pushy Americans would be popping by for look round and could I possibly come back in an hour to join them? Sure, so I go back to what looks like the only pub in town and sit down to have a nice pint o’ Guinness.

Now this looks like a scene out of every black and white British-made war flick you’ve ever seen. Dark inside with light streaming through the grimy windows in smoke-enhanced sunbeams and a crusty old coot in a Mac and wee cap sitting all on his ownsome at the other end of the bar. I’m enjoying my pint when I hear in a craggy old croaky voice, "yew like that beer, dew ya?" I fire back a witty riposte like "yeah it’s good". He moves in for the kill, "’mare-a-kin beer is sissy water with sewer gas". I burst out laughing and tip my glass to him and he is totally deflated at not having the opportunity to gas on about the merits of Guinness versus Bud. I pay for the pint and leave for the distillery.

Well it turns out that my Yankee cohorts were a film crew shooting a documentary and they’ve been delayed so would I mind just taking the tour alone? Sure, a personal one-on-one tour sounds good to me, so off we go. The wee old man showing me around is a very engaging fellow and we’re blathering on as we walk through the inner workings of the plant. I make the mistake of revealing that I’m a homebrewer at about the time we get to the fermenters, which in distillery-speak is called the mash tun. He says to me, "Ohhh, then you’ll really appreciate this." He then opens the wooden hatch on the mash tun and says, "Take a wee whiff of this."

Anyone with a brewing background or knowledge of high school biology will know what’s about to happen next. I was feeling fancy free, having a good time and totally unsuspicious of my new "friend". So, I breathe in deeply the wonderful vapors from the majestic malt and get…..a snoot full of pure carbon dioxide! Now he’s laughing and doubled over from the sight of my eyes streaming with tears and nose running like a faucet, gasping for air like a fish out of water.

The rest of the tour is pretty much a blur until we get to the hospitality room. I think they normally shove a toddy at you and give you the boot, but since we were the only two people there, it was more laid back. Also, I think my guide was feeling a little guilty over the mash tun incident. Anyway, he asked me if I wanted a toddy and I declined. Then he asked how much water I wanted and I said "none". Well, he immediately transformed, his face brightened and he said, "So, then you’ll be wanting a wee bit of the good stuff."

He goes off somewhere else and produces a bottle of Black Bush, which wasn’t sold in the US at the time. He pours us each a generous dram and we get to gassing on about this and that while he invisibly keeps the levels in the glasses constant. I guess it was about the time that he was trying to set me up with the gift shop girl, that I realized we were both a couple of sheets to the wind. The film crew had finally shown up and it was time for my congenial host to attend to the barbarians.

I get back in the WREN-oh and start off for the golf course. Well, the scenic road seems a little more twisty on the way back and there’s this thing about shifting a manual transmission with the wrong hand in the wrong direction. About three quarters of the way back to the course, there’s a promontory where the road suddenly splits into two lanes, on the left -- rocky cliff, on the right -- 500 foot drop to the Atlantic. I flashback to thinking I’m on the "wrong" side of the road and starting heading toward the right side, when a giant lorry suddenly fills my ocean view. An adrenaline surge and I’m back on the left and straight as an arrow back to Portrush.

That was the antidote and when I greeted the golfers, the adrenaline had washed away all outward signs of my lovely afternoon in Bushmills. Except, of course, for this fuzzy recollection.