Going back to a Bowmore I had quite a while ago during a wee online tasting that I’ve been doing regularly with JPH. We dubbed it our ‘quarterly advent’ since we found out we like doing those semi-blind things, but November is always gobbled up by the Blind Tasting Competition.

And I know that November isn’t advent yet, but December has lots of holidays and other events. So much so that getting a couple of nights available for whisky tasting is quite tough to arrange. Hence us spreading it out. Recently we had some epic all-time-high drams. A while ago we did a series of 17 year old Bowmores. This SMWS bottling was also part of it.

Sniff:
It’s very spirity, with some active wood involved. There’s only a whiff of smoke. Pine and resin, green malt as well. Interestingly, it’s more the oak than the bourbon that’s coming through. A little bit of coastal salinity and dark chocolate. A hint of apple far in the background.

Sip:
Not a too intense arrival. Some harsh notes from the oak with notes of resin, pine, pine cones, and green apple. There’s a slight syrupy, sappy sweetness going on too. A tiny hint of smoke behind it all, as well as some coastal notes.

Swallow:
On the finish there’s quite a bit more smoke than before. Quite smoky indeed! Still woody with resin. Dark chocolate and sea salt, sweetened lemon, green apple. Slightly on the short side.

Interesting with lots of woody things going on, and the fruity flavors playing second fiddle. Except on the finish, the same goes for the smoke.

The combination of clean wood and crisp spirity notes (without the overly sweet notes of alcohol you tend to get with new make) is very interesting. Strangely, it works rather well and that is not a thing I expected.

88/100