Bushmills Is Buying 5,000 Whiskey Fans A Round For St. Patrick's Day
There's no bigger day to promote Irish whiskey than St. Patrick's Day, the holiday that celebrates Ireland's patron saint. Well, it's a public holiday in Ireland, anyway. In the U.S., St. Patrick's Day is more of a celebration of Irish culture, with plenty of parades, parties, and pub visits. In 2018, for example, St. Patrick's Day was the biggest sales day of the year for American bars and restaurants, per NielsenIQ.
Bushmills, the oldest of all the Irish whiskey makers with a history that dates back to 1608 in Northern Ireland's County Antrim, certainly understands the importance of St. Patrick's Day in America from a sales and marketing perspective. In 2017, for instance, the brand premiered its new Bushmills Red Bush whiskey in the U.S. the week before the holiday. Then, in 2021, the brand went even bigger, offering to buy free drinks for thousands of stateside tipplers as part of its #firstwhiskey promotion.
This year, Bushmills is once again giving away free whiskey to thousands of Americans, albeit as part of an entirely new promotion.
How to enter to win free Bushmills whiskey for St. Patrick's Day
In 2023, Bushmills is asking St. Patrick's Day revelers not to be sheep, and to avoid the "herd mentality" of ordering the same brands over and over again. The company doesn't mention these brands fully in its recent press release, but it does name drop "Jim, Jamo, Johnnie, and Jack," which offers a clue as to which competitors it's referring to. To drive the point home, Bushmills is actually bringing sheep with those names attached to a New York bar on St. Patrick's Day.
The distiller wants Americans to drink its authentic Irish whiskey instead, and as part of its "Forget Your Namesake" promotion for the holiday, it's giving away a substantial number of free drinks (5,000, to be exact). The way it works is this: Enter your name and the phone number linked to your Venmo account at www.forsakeyournamesake.com. If your entry is picked, Bushmills will give you $10 via Venmo to go toward a round of its whiskey.
The brand is announcing 625 winners per day, starting March 10 and ending on St. Patrick's Day, March 17.