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Dwelling
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| Hello, that is one in all our (virtually) every day tastings. Santé! |
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August 2, 2022
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The twentieth Anniversary Classes,
right now Bowmore
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After the completely flabbergasting Largiemeanoch on WF’s birthday, let’s have another Bowmores, as it’s a distillate that we like actually lots (besides for many Eighties vintages and a number of the late Nineteen Seventies). Offered no heady, cloying and albeit stuffy wooden remedies has ever been inflicted.
({photograph}, Islay climate, 2007, WF Archive)
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Bowmore ‘Tiger’s Selection’ (59.9%, Clan Denny for Or Sileis, Taiwan, barrel, cask #DL14130, 239 bottles, 2020) 
No age and no classic that I can discover right here, which does not make it straightforward to insert right into a verticale, but it surely’s ‘likely very younger’, as are all NAS in our e-book. So, let’s have this one as #1. Clan Denny is a Douglas Laing sub-brand. Color: pale white wine. Nostril: you do really feel the youth (mercurochrome, medicinal alcohol), you do really feel Bowmore’s tropical fruitiness too. Plus a really coastal, very salty smokiness. The power is a bit excessive. With water: fruit syrups and somewhat a bit ‘candy’ varnish. It actually wants fairly some water to get to the coastal phenols. Mouth (neat): syrupy, huge, eau-de-vie-ish, a bit brutal when neat. Some pears (youth certainly) and ultra-ripe papayas. With water: there, some salted and smoked fish, anchovies, sardines, rollmops… How very Bowmore, however you have to struggle your option to these components. Pretty brine, some limoncello. End: somewhat lengthy, younger, candy. The aftertaste is superior now, clear, fats, Bowmoreish. Feedback: not too positive how outdated that is, however a number of extra years would have helped, I’d say. However the drop is first-class.
SGP:636 (uncommon profile, huge treble and bass, few mediums) – 85 factors. |
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Bowmore 19 yo 2002/2021 (50.4%, Cadenhead, Genuine Assortment, bourbon hogshead, 180 bottles) 
Oh nicely, all siblings and compadres have been nothing in need of gorgeous in my e-book, so this word might be a bit superfluous. Color: straw. Nostril: geranium, new rubber (tyres), tomato leaves, seaweed, lime juice, seawater, oysters and, as soon as extra, limoncello. Steadiness is ideal. With water: contemporary mint and pink grapefruits taking off. Splendid Bowmoreness. Mouth (neat): fats, smoky, lemony, salty, coastal, chiselled and fairly hi-precision. I consider it is time we point out whelks, our mates. Sooner or later I am going to let you know about that day, forty years in the past, after I first purchased some whelks whereas not realizing that you just needed to prepare dinner them. An utter catastrophe, it was. With water: a bit candy, virtually syrupy, however in any other case all the pieces works in sync, citrus, brine, fish, smoke… End: beautiful, only a wee tad sweetish, or it could have reached the 90-mark in my e-book. Feedback: splendid and, most of all, extraordinarily idiosyncratic (yeah proper). You possibly can’t get sufficient of that.
SGP:656 – 89 factors. |
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Bowmore 16 yo 2001/2017 (54.8%, Cadenhead, Whisky Store Baden) 
So very predictable! Let’s do that fast… Color: white wine. However naturally. Nostril: chalk, seaside sand, smoked fish, oysters, tarmac, seaweed… However naturally. With water: new rubber bands, whelks, winkles, new engine oil, olive brine. In fact. Mouth (neat): tar, salt, lemon juice, seawater, mezcal, inexperienced olives, lime twist. However naturally. With water: emphasis on salty tar and lemon zests. Clearly. End: gorgeous sharpness however with as soon as extra a wee syrupy sweetness. Brine within the aftertaste. Feedback: extraordinary purity. Was this fast sufficient? However naturally… What’s lifeless positive is that we wanted these batches of Bowmore inside our celebratory tasting periods. And there is extra.
SGP:556 – 90 factors. |
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Bowmore 18 yo 2001/2020 (50.8%, The Character of Islay, The Tales of Wind & Wave, refill bourbon barrel, cask #11715)
That is what we name deflated packaging. Or swimming in opposition to the stream (as most fish do anyway, in line with consultants, however there). Color: straw. Nostril: a bit extra on the dry-white facet, with extra sourness, much less candy roundness, and but a number of drops of coconut wine and maybe even pina colada. No issues, senor basic! With water: ooh outdated garments in an outdated wardrobe in an outdated attic in an outdated home in an outdated to… (that’ll do, S.) Mouth (neat): simply unbelievable. Completely vibrant, lifted, ethereal, salty, lemony, and this time with many complicated facet tones, flowers, wee berries, tiny herbs… However-what-a-whisky! With water: whaah! I am unable to see what I’d change on this wee Bowmore, aside from the variety of centilitres within the bottle. Wonderful bottle. End: in conserving, maybe a notch saltier. Feedback: as soon as once more the purity right here wins it. To suppose that some would dump this into PX or Port.
SGP:656 – 91 factors. |
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Bowmore 18 yo 2001/2020 (55.4%, The Character of Islay, The Tales of Wind & Wave, refill bourbon barrel, cask #11714)
Color: white wine. Nostril: shut in fact, however totally different, a tad extra on grasses, rawer peat smoke, as if this barrel had been much less energetic. No pina colada this time. With water: extra damp earth this time, dunnage… Splendid. Mouth (neat): terrifically coastal and mentholy. I do not suppose I’ve ever had a plate of oysters with some contemporary mint, and unsure anybody would strive that, however that is what I am getting. The whisky is dazzlingly spectacular. With water: masterpiece. End: sadly. Feedback: I believe I like this type of purity much more, however that is not sufficient to warrant yet one more level. Thoughts you, at this type of altitude, additional factors are getting extraordinarily costly, as our bankers within the Caiman Islands very nicely know..
SGP:556 – 91 factors. |
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It is time to attempt to retrieve a lot older vintages, no?
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Bowmore 30 yo 1972 (53.2%, Kingsbury, Japan, hogshead, cask #927, 209 bottles, +/-2002)
Nicknamed ‘the Celtic label’, nicely unsure about what was Celtic, however these Bowmores by Kingsbury / Eaglesome / Cadenhead have at all times been of very excessive extraction (taking about lineage, not about wooden). Get ready… Color: full gold. Nostril: these are very transferring vintages, as a result of after the very buoyant Nineteen Sixties, the Nineteen Seventies simply could not do it any higher. Not possible! And but, and regardless of a tiny wee soapiness that was beginning to seem right here and there, many have been improbable. That is no exception, with these notes of blueberry tarte and puréed chestnuts, blood oranges (huge time, wow!), a curious winey facet (checked the precise cask)… With water: ho-ho, Maggi, lovage, miso, vegetal umami, walnuts… And but it was a hogshead. Mouth (neat): sweets, bonbons, marshmallows, toffee apples… The brand new fashion of Bowmore was already there. When did our Japanese mates purchase Bowmore once more? Proper, solely within the early Nineteen Nineties, however these batches had been already clearly totally different. I imply, from these of the Nineteen Sixties and really early Nineteen Seventies. With water: again to the insane tropicalness of the Nineteen Sixties. Mangos, pink grapefruits and maracuja in all places. End: medium, very fruity, somewhat on wine gums, with a really , very smooth smokiness. Feedback: nothing was apparent on this one. It is extraordinary whisky and, ‘in concept’, ought to have fetched an awfully excessive rating. The factor is, these b****y 2001s have form of blocked it.
SGP:653 – 90 factors. |
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Bowmore 14 yo 1971 (57.7%, Sestante, +/-1985)
Proper, I did do this one (from one other bottle, clearly) again in 2012 and plenty of mates whom I belief have been gently complaining about the truth that my rating had been actually low given the pedigree (WF 77). High quality, we’re not cussed, let’s simply give it one other strive, ten years later. Actually, I do not bear in mind a lot in regards to the first time I attempted this Bowie, all I’ve bought is my outdated tasting word. So, with an open thoughts and a prepared coronary heart, let’s do this child once more. Color: reddish amber. Nostril: all proper, all proper. Quince jelly, vegetal earth, blood oranges, overripe mangos… An actual feeling of super-top-end sangria, in actual fact. Properly nicely nicely… With water: mint, liquorice, fruity earth (compost) and fruity yeasts. Mouth (neat): wow. I’d suppose the one I attempted in 2012 had been wrecked, even when I am not fairly an integral fan of those reddish fruits which might be roaming this palate. German strawberry wine, okkkay… With water: it is a candy fruit bomb, with tiny herbs, tobaccos and dried fruits (prunes!) enjoying round. At occasions you are considering of outdated Ténarèze. End: somewhat lengthy, wealthy and but balanced, with somewhat blood oranges on the helm. Feedback: what’s completely positive is that again in 2012, on that day, I used to be both in a really unhealthy temper, or the whisky I had had been having a lot bother. Not too positive, it is to be remembered that again then, many people had been having a somewhat poor opinion on Bowmore, usually talking. We had been anticipating whole wreckage, to be sincere, because the Eighties had been so horrendously nasty. Now I would somewhat go for both a wrecked bottle, or a wrecked pattern, as that one had just about no fruits in any respect. So, as solely fools by no means change their thoughts…
SGP:644 – 90 factors. |
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PS: unsure I’ve ever seen an OB sporting the wording ‘The Bowmore’, have you ever? Goody good, let’ have a more moderen one simply to raise our spirits, earlier than we name this a tasing session.
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Bowmore 16 yo 1998 (Scotch Malt Whisky Society, refill barrel, #3.236, ‘Heathery smoke drifting by the shore’, 141 bottles, +/-2015)
I agree, not that new, however we have feeling right here. Color: gentle gold. Nostril: sure, these barely animal touches, these whiffs of farmyard, canine, then paint and putty, lobster, linseed oil, sesame and raisins… A distinct sport altogether, a lot farmier. With water: burning manure, backyard bonfire, orange squash. Mouth (neat): tremendous good, filled with candied fruits, as in some correct cassata ice cream. Behind that, Asian wines and drinks, umeshu and all that. Prune wine. Adore it. Please word that I am completely conscious of the truth that writing ‘Asian’ is very myopic and that we all know very nicely that each nation and even each area and even tiny city has bought its personal gorgeous delicacies. Finish of shameful PC assertion. With water: wonderful, only a tad fattish and sweetish right here and there. Syrupy, as we typically write. End: lengthy, saltier, so wonderful. Feedback: I can see why that ‘heathery smoke’, nicely noticed expensive SMWS!
SGP:656 – 88 factors. |
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(Thanks as ever, Angus, Lukas and KC!)
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