Bushmills® Irish Whiskey has announced the latest collaboration in the #AnswerTheCall series. This month, the whiskey brand will join forces with inventor and entrepreneur Ciaran Larkin to host the ‘Whiskey and Invention’ event at The Menagerie, Belfast. Attendees of the event will hear the journey of how Ciaran launched his business, and have the opportunity to put their creative skills to use. 

The #AnswerTheCall campaign celebrates local talent, sharing the unheard stories of determined adventurers, entrepreneurs, artists and creatives, inspiring others to follow their own true calling.  As part of the #AnswerTheCall series, Bushmills has partnered with Ciaran to host ‘Whiskey and Invention’, an intimate event where attendees will enjoy specially-created Bushmills Black Bush® serves whilst hearing Ciaran’s exciting journey as an international product designer. 

From a young age, as the inventor and designer behind maderealdesign.com, Ciaran was taking things apart, discovering how they worked and reconfiguring the parts to create something bigger and better than existed before.  Despite graduating with a degree in Electronic Engineering from Queen’s University in Belfast, Ciaran struggled to find his place. He was an engineer on paper, but an artist at heart. He could make cool things and had a bucket load of ideas, but there wasn’t a clear career path for him to follow. All he knew was that he wanted to invent and he had the raw talent and a passion to make it.

In 2011, Ciaran decided to turn his passion for creating things into a business and began building props, costumes and personalised gift items out of pieces of disused metal.  In 2015, Ciaran attended The Inventor’s Workshop in England where he pitched his creative ideas to a room full of top executives and was snapped up by American company Hasbro. That one pitch essentially changed his life and, since then, Ciaran has been splitting his time between his home in Belfast and the U.S. working on top secret projects for the legendary company.  

With Ciaran’s guidance, guests at the event will be inspired to put their creative genius to use, with a hands-on workshop in creating new items from scrap metal, ice buckets and whiskey bottles. To be in with a chance to attend ‘Whiskey and Invention’ on Thursday 28th September, visit answerthecall.co.uk and register at the events section. 

To read more stories of calling from local talent and to keep up to date with the #AnswerTheCall series, visit www.answerthecall.co.uk. To join in the conversation, follow Bushmills on social media @BushmillsUK.  

Chris Caldwell

Author: Chris Caldwell

Chris Caldwell at your service! My favourite things are eating and Theatre, I have 2 small sons called Alex and Max who are more mustard than Hellmann's. I spend my days trying to wrangle them and exploring my favourite city - BELFAST! My favourite films are horror, my fav music is metal and my favourite Beatle is Ringo, mainly his work on Thomas the Tank.