ROVER 75 and MG ZT CLUB OUTING TO BUSHMILLS DISTILLERY and PORTSTEWART STRAND - 13TH MAY 2012

The Rover 75 & MG ZT Club visited the Bushmills Distillery followed by a photo shoot on Portstewart Strand on 13th May 2012.

My husband and I arrived at the distillery in our Rover 75 saloon at 11.00am to find a Rover 75 Tourer was the only other person there.  As we chatted a Rover 25 arrived.  At 11.15am the Club Secretary of the MG ZT Club arrived - 15 minutes late, which is now customary for him. By the time we went inside to book onto a tour another 5 members had turned up.

The tour was very interesting and informative.  A couple of interesting facts that I remember -    

•  Some of the kegs are bought from Bourbon manufactures (who have only used the kegs once); Bushmills then use them up to 3 times before they are sold on. 
•  A keg a filled and left to mature for 21 years will have lost half of its contents through evaporation,  they call that the “Angels share”, which explains why it is so expensive.

When we returned to our cars, 2 more members were waiting for us.  From here we headed to the chip shop for lunch which was eaten in our cars because of the poor weather.

Our departure to the beach was delayed by a minor breakdown; thankfully a short push was enough to get the car in question up and running again.

A quick stop off for diesel was called for; when I went to pay the staff were intrigued by all the Rovers in the forecourt and entered into conversation with me about our day out.

               

By the time we reached the beach, it was blowing a gale, resulting in the cars getting a severe sandblasting and we all got free facials.  

After a quick photo session, some decided to call it a day while the rest of us headed into Portstewart to Morelli’s for ice cream.

We thoroughly enjoyed the outing despite the weather and the fact that it took hours of cleaning to get all the sand off the cars.