Bowmore 15 Year Old

Bowmore 15 Year Old, seaside

We are heading back to Islay for our next Scotch review, this time to take a sip of the Bowmore 15 year old aged single malt.  When I first started providing friends tasting notes in addition to suggestions for whiskies, it began with single malt Scotch.  I mentioned this in a previous post, but a friend was looking to expand his single malt palate beyond Macallan and into the intriguing, yet intimidating peated varieties.  Of the handful of starter bottles that I chose to test prior to making a recommendation, one was the Bowmore 12 Year.  To be candid, I was not overly impressed by the sip.  I found the nose full of mustiness (not in a good way) and acetone with the taste being a bit thin at 40% ABV, although it had nice malty bread notes and a wisp of peat smoke.  The price wasn’t bad at $60, but overall I thought there were more interesting single malts to buy with that amount of money.  That said, the Bowmore 15, formerly called “Darkest”, was long on my list to purchase but the only problem was finding a bottle.  I finally stumbled across a batch of bottles this past Summer and snatched one up despite my ever-growing queue of new acquisitions. 

Bowmore’s operations have a long history, starting in 1779 as the first licensed distillery on Islay and the second in Scotland.  Surviving a number of economic cycles and multiple ownership changes, Bowmore continued to produce whisky until going on a brief hiatus during WWII, when the Royal Air Force took over the grounds to be used as an airbase. Changing hands a couple more times over the next few decades brings us to the current owner, Beam Suntory, who acquired Bowmore in 2014.  

Bowmore is situated on the southeastern coast of Loch Indaal (see map) on the Isle of Islay, which is the most southern island of the Inner Hebrides.  Its proximity to the coast greatly influences the overall flavor profile of Bowmore’s releases, from malting its own barley in an airy shed, to the peat used to dry the damp green malt, through its aging process.  The 15 Year Old release was aged in Bowmore’s No. 1 Vaults, thought to be the oldest maturation area in the world.  While I have not visited the distillery, the accounts I gathered through a bit of online research state that the Number 1 Valt is below-sea level, so the sea-facing walls are constantly washed with sea spray from the Atlantic Ocean.  Visitors claim to be able to hear the waves crashing, taste the salty air and feel the wind while within the subterranean aging warehouse, which sounds pretty cool to me.  The Bowmore website has loads of information about its history and production process, so I recommended checking it out.

But enough of history…let’s start sipping.

ABV: 43%

How it smells…smoky and fruity sweet.  The smoke is hard to place, it reminds me of mesquite but earthier.

How it tastes…a briny, fruity sweetness at the start followed by a bit of peppery spice.  The end is malty with some toffee notes and is a tad drying, but the finish is probably the best part.  The finish is long and smoky, but also has a rich, sweet, chocolaty flavor and creaminess to it as well.  The sweetness pleasantly lingers for quite a while until your next sip.

Price...$80

Rating...🥃🥃🥃🥃

Final thoughts…This is a very pleasant sip.  The peat level is mild relative to many of its Islay peers, but still respectable for those peat lovers out there.  The 15 Year Old is aged for 12 years in ex-Bourbon casks and then finished for 3 years in ex-Sherry casks, so you get another layer of flavor compared to its 12 Year Old sibling, and in my opinion, well worth the extra ~$20 in price.  While 3 extra years of aging doesn’t seem like a lot, in this case it’s provides for quite the upgrade.  Of course, the cask finishing helps as well, but even if you strip away the fruity notes, it’s still a much better constructed whisky.  

I found the smoke flavor the hardest part for me to place during the tasting.  It’s not overpowering, but ever-present in all phases of the sip.  It’s like a campfire where you don’t notice the smell until you smell its absence.  The smokiness is sweet but also a little earthy.  I kept wanting to describe the taste as “dark” but I recognize that “dark” is a terrible description for a flavor, yet that’s the word that kept coming to mind.  The finish had a bit of cayenne pepper as well that I picked up every other sip.  The combination of the fruit, nutty chocolate, cayenne, and smoke reminded me of mole from Mexican cuisine.  

From a value perspective, at $80 this is a 4x 🥃 rating without question.  After doing a bit of research, it doesn’t seem like this price has appreciated much over the past handful of years, at least comparatively to others in the 14-15 year age range. I’m glad that I finally found a bottle of this and after experiencing what the extra 3 years of aging gave the 15 versus the 12, it looks like I’m going to have to hunt for the 18 to see if the trend continues.

Recommendation:  Buy