Bowmore

Region: Islay

Owner: Morrison Bowmore (Suntory)

Founded: 1779

Is there anything like an old Bowmore? I believe not. It has that classic, dusty echo of peat along with parma violets and occasionally tarred rope, fish and brine. This is what I refer to as ‘old skool’ Bowmore. Two releases in 2013 perfectly encapsulated this beautiful character, both aged in American oak and both released by independent bottlers. The first being the Mackillop’s Choice 23 year old and the other being the Douglas Laing Old Particular 25 year old. If you can track down either of those bottlings, then you will see exactly what I mean.

Even young Bowmore can be impressive and entertaining, especially when it’s wild, windswept and smoky, so if every bottling fell into this utopian category, we would be talking about an A+ distillery for sure, but this isn’t utopia Toto! Although the good bottlings outweigh the bad ones, when it’s bad, it’s bad! A lot of this badness comes down to the oak, whether it’s sulphur blemished sherry butts, and there has been a fair few of those or ropy old American oak casks and we haven’t got on to the distillery bottlings yet.

So, let’s move on to the distillery releases. Back in the day, the old 12 and 17 year old releases were classic. Both bottlings had signed up to the windswept, ‘putting hairs on yer chest’ Islay profile. This however all changed sometime around 2009 when they decided to drop the abv of the 12 year old from 43% to 40% and it became all rather ‘nice’ and ‘polite’ and distinctly un-Bowmore as far as I was concerned. The 17 year old release was replaced by an 18 year old that had been so smothered in caramel, natural, not E-150, but to say that it blunted and flattened a great whisky was an obvious understatement.

Thankfully, the distillery began releasing a range that they ironically, in my opinion, they called ‘Tempest’. This 10 year old, bottled at cask strength, attempted to recreate the manly bottling of yore, but as I mused upon tasting Batch 1, it was “a bit light weight – less of a tempest and more of a slight squall”. Although that was when it had been diluted and neat, it was definitely more ‘old skool’. To date there have been five releases and forgetting Batch 4, which was the weakest of the bunch, they are, by and large, for me, what Bowmore is really all about.

Considering that a 20+ year old bottling is definitely going to set you back about three figures, then I would think twice about shelling out for it, unless of course I’m selling it to you, then you will definitely know it’s worth buying!