Bushmills and 1608: What the Historic Licence Really Proves

The 1608 licence proves that Sir Thomas Phillips received permission to make aquavitae across a substantial territory in the north of Ireland, for seven years. It does not establish that Bushmills Distillery was founded that year: the grant, as quoted by historian George Hill, names neither Bushmills nor a particular distillery.[1]

What the 1608 licence actually says

The most revealing words are not the date but the territory and the term. Hill’s 1877 history quotes the grant to Phillips:

“on the 20th of Apriell, 1608, for the next seaven yeres, within the countie of Colrane, otherwise called O'Cahane's countrey, and within the territorie called the Rowte, in Co. Antrim”.[1]

This is a personal grant covering the county of Coleraine and the Route, not permission addressed to a named distillery. Hill separately describes it as a licence “to make aquavitae”, and groups such grants with licences to manufacture and sell “what we call whiskey” in particular districts.[1]

Those distinctions give the document its historical value. It records permission, its recipient, its geographical reach and its duration. Permission to produce a spirit is not, by itself, a record that production began, still less evidence that one particular distillery continued operating from that moment.

Story box: Seven years of permission in northern Ireland

Verdict badge: The licence

Claim: Phillips received a seven year territorial licence on 20 April 1608.

Verdict: Documented.

What the record shows: Hill prints the date, recipient, term and territories.[1]

Evidence against or gap: The quotations do not name Bushmills or establish a distillery foundation. The original enrolment was not opened, and its survival is not established.

Source: Hill, 1877, pages 384 and 393.[1]

Last checked: 5 November 2026.

A territory, not a distillery address

The Route was a territory in north Antrim. The printed repertory of Irish patent rolls places “the castle of Dunluce” within “the Rowte”, helping explain why the unfamiliar name should not be read as a distillery or a single settlement.[4]

Bushmills’ own history makes a more local connection. It says that “Bushmills and the surrounding area sought legal recognition” in 1608, and that James I granted Sir Thomas Phillipps permission to distil and sell spirits within the region. These are the producer’s descriptions of the event; Hill’s quoted grant instead identifies the county of Coleraine and the Route.[2][1]

The difference matters because an area’s distilling history and a distillery’s foundation answer different questions.

Verdict badge: Where the licence pointed

Claim: The licence points specifically to Bushmills and its surrounding area.

Verdict: Disputed.

What the record shows: Bushmills makes the local connection, while Hill’s quotations name the county of Coleraine and the Route rather than the town.[1][2]

Evidence against or gap: The quoted grant does not identify a particular distillery or establish that the licence was issued for Bushmills.

Sources: Hill, 1877, pages 384 and 393; Bushmills, Our legacy.[1][2]

Last checked: 5 November 2026.

Nor should the spelling of Phillips’ name distract from that distinction. Hill and historian T. W. Moody use “Phillips”; the printed patent rolls and Bushmills’ website use “Phillipps”. The important question is what the grant authorised, not which spelling a modern account adopts.[1][2][3][4]

Who was Sir Thomas Phillips?

Phillips enters this history as a recipient of royal privileges, not as a documented Bushmills distillery founder. Moody describes him as a servitor, one of the military men who had fought for the Crown during Tyrone’s rebellion and subsequently pursued forfeited land in Ulster.[3]

Distilling permission was not his only privilege. The printed patent rolls also record a grant allowing him to hold a Wednesday market and a fair on 24 June at Coleraine.[4] Read alongside that record, the aquavitae licence belongs to a wider history of land, markets and authority.

Phillips’ circumstances were less comfortable than possession of these grants might suggest. On 10 May 1608, three weeks after receiving the licence, he wrote from Coleraine to Salisbury that “his estate is worse now than when he was called out of France”. He also said that he had bought the place where he lived with his own money.[1]

Verdict badge: Phillips’ letter

Claim: Phillips complained about his estate shortly after the grant.

Verdict: Documented.

What the record shows: Hill quotes his letter of 10 May 1608, and Moody identifies him as a servitor of Tyrone’s war.[1][3]

Evidence against or gap: The letter does not establish that he operated a Bushmills distillery.

Sources: Hill, 1877; Moody, 1939.[1][3]

Last checked: 5 November 2026.

Why permission to make aquavitae mattered

Hill places these licences within an attempt to restrict production. He quotes an Irish Act of the third and fourth years of Philip and Mary, chapter 7, intended to prevent “the waste of corne” through “the inordinate makeinge of aquavita”. In his account, it prohibited making aquavitae without the lord deputy’s licence, subject to specified exemptions.[1]

Those exemptions included certain peers, landed gentlemen and freemen of parliamentary boroughs producing for their own use. Hill then reports that aquavitae nevertheless continued to be made abundantly by many people. The response was to restrict its manufacture to a smaller number of licensed recipients.[1]

This makes the 1608 grant evidence of an effort to control an existing activity, rather than evidence that distilling suddenly began.[1]

Verdict badge: The first licence

Claim: Phillips received the first distilling licence anywhere.

Verdict: Legend.

What the record shows: A later blog calls it the first licence, but Hill describes an earlier Irish licensing requirement. The blog’s transcription also begins “A like License”, suggesting a similar preceding entry.[1][5]

Evidence against or gap: The full printed calendar entry was not opened, and the earliest appearance of the claim is not established.

Sources: Hill, 1877; A Thirst for Firsts, First whiskey distilling licence.[1][5]

Last checked: 5 November 2026.

The grant’s vocabulary deserves equal care. Its spirit is aquavitae; “what we call whiskey” is Hill’s nineteenth century explanation. Preserving that distinction lets the early record speak without making its terminology more specific than it is.[1]

The licence was not a permanent inheritance

Seven years is explicit in Hill’s quotation. The grant was therefore not an unlimited permission that can simply be carried forward through the later history of a distillery.[1]

Its subsequent history also runs into the plantation arrangements involving the City of London. Hill records the London companies’ demand for freedom from previously granted privileges, naming the making of aquavitae among the monopolies standing in their way. He includes Phillips’ aquavitae patent among the holdings Phillips was required to surrender.[1]

A later complaint complicates any neat account of the handover. It lists “Divers grants for aquavitae” among privileges which should have been surrendered but remained “yet unsurrendered”. The evidence establishes the surrender requirement and the complaint, not a confirmed date on which Phillips’ particular licence was surrendered.[1]

Neither the original seven year term nor the subsequent surrender dispute provides evidence of an enduring licence attached to Bushmills.

Why Bushmills’ birthday remains disputed

Bushmills leads its producer history with “THE ORIGINAL WHISKEY, BORN 1608”. That is an explicit association between the brand and the licensing date.[2] The historical question is whether the association also establishes the foundation of the distillery.

The Irish Whiskey Association timeline lists Bushmills Distillery in 1784.[TOP-A046] A local guide by Art Ward identifies an Excise Survey of that year as the first official record of “Old Bushmills” as a distillery, registered to Hugh Anderson. The survey was not opened, so Ward’s account remains a disputed secondary claim rather than a finding drawn directly from the record.[6]

Verdict badge: The 1784 survey

Claim: The 1784 Excise Survey registered a Bushmills distillery to Hugh Anderson.

Verdict: Disputed.

What the record shows: Ward’s local guide makes the claim, and the Irish Whiskey Association timeline lists Bushmills Distillery in 1784.[6][TOP-A046]

Evidence against or gap: The survey itself was not opened, so the registration and Anderson’s role have not been checked against it.

Sources: Ward, Bushmills Distillery; fact sheet TOP-A046, citing the Irish Whiskey Association timeline.

Last checked: 5 November 2026.

Verdict badge: Bushmills’ birthday

The dates need not describe the same event. A territorial licence and a later record identifying a distillery can both belong to the history of one area without proving an unbroken business history between them.

Verdict badge: The bootlegger story

Claim: Bootleggers ran an illicit distilling business in the area in the late 1500s.

Verdict: Legend.

What the record shows: Bushmills tells the story in its producer history.[2]

Evidence against or gap: No supporting record was opened for the account.

Source: Bushmills, Our legacy.[2]

Last checked: 5 November 2026.

Bushmills’ history also says that a fire destroyed nearly all of the distillery in 1885. This is the producer’s account.[2]

How to read the date without losing the history

The useful test is to ask what each date actually labels. For 1608, the answer is a dated permission to Phillips, covering named territories for a specified term. For the producer, it is also the date chosen to express Bushmills’ historical identity.[1][2]

That distinction does not make the licence uninteresting. It makes it more revealing: a document about who could make aquavitae, where they could make it and how royal privileges fitted into the changing administration of northern Ireland. Its significance is substantial without asking it to prove a distillery foundation.

Sources

[1] George Hill. An Historical Account of the Plantation in Ulster at the Commencement of the Seventeenth Century, 1608 to 1620. Belfast: M'Caw, Stevenson and Orr, 1877. Printed history quoting the patent roll calendar and historical correspondence, particularly pages 384, 393 and 422. Internet Archive OCR edition. https://archive.org/details/historicalaccoun00hill_0

[2] The Old Bushmills Distillery Company. Our legacy. Producer history, checked November 2026. https://bushmills.com/history/

[3] T. W. Moody. Sir Thomas Phillips of Limavady, Servitor. Irish Historical Studies, volume 1, number 3, March 1939, pages 251 to 272. Opening page and notes available through Cambridge Core. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/irish-historical-studies/article/sir-thomas-phillips-of-limavady-servito/9520452296C52C9CD9141A24A3731665

[4] J. C. Erck. A Repertory of the Inrolments on the Patent Rolls of Chancery in Ireland, commencing with the reign of James I. Volume 1, Dublin, 1846. Internet Archive OCR edition, including page 257, number 112. https://archive.org/details/arepertoryinrol00erckgoog

[5] A Thirst for Firsts. First whiskey distilling licence. Secondary blog, checked November 2026. https://www.athirstforfirsts.co.uk/post/first-whiskey-distilling-licence

[6] Art Ward, Causeway Coastal Route. Bushmills Distillery. Local guide, checked November 2026. https://www.causewaycoastalroute.com/bushmills-distillery

[TOP-A046] Set 02 fact sheet TOP-A046, citing the Irish Whiskey Association timeline entry for Bushmills Distillery in 1784.

This article uses the supplied fact sheets to distinguish the printed grant, historical scholarship, the producer’s account and a secondary local history.

Last checked: November 2026