Some notes to start off this tasting note:

• Yes, I’ve tried this one before. The review is in this post.
• I bought it last year as a sort of everyday dram.
• I do realize that a 17 year old Bowmore had something to live up to in 2014, and that has not diminished.

Anyway, 17 year old Bowmore, from bourbon casks. That does sound good to me. I quite enjoyed a sample of this back in the day, when I participated in that Twitter tasting for its release. Then, last year in my local bottle shop they unearthed a bottle of this and I decided to get my hands on it.

The lion’s share of it was shared over the months following, and this weekend I decided to end my last 10 cl of it, or what was left of that. Just to see how my palate changed over the last decade. Sample size one, so that doesn’t say much, but I do like to re-evaluate stuff once in a while.

Sniff:
Very crisp and very Bowmore-y. As in, there definitely is peat and smoke, but it’s not as in-your-face as the south and east of Islay distilleries. There’s a hint of banana and apple, almost no salinity, but there’s a bit of fruity acidity.

Sip:
The palate has a peppery smoke with with a warming palate. Banana, apple, coconut, peat. Quite gentle after the initial hit of black pepper. Quite a bit of white oak too, far more than on the nose.

Swallow:
The finish is very similar. Less peppery and that leaves a little bit more room for the fruity notes. White grapes show up, and the banana is gone. Apples are still present. Some peat smoke with a bit more coastal flavors than before.

Some tasting notes are different from what they were in 2014. Most of them are the same. So that’s something, I guess. I still quite like this dram, although I’m not as impressed by it as I was back in the day. I might have been a bit too enthusiastic then, or I am a bit more cynical now. Who’s to say.

Still, with this costing you about € 100 now the price is almost the same as it was back then, interestingly. I guess these releases by Bowmore, that never really got a lot of traction, aren’t very popular. A couple of years ago this was the same with the 100 Proof.

87/100