The fifth day of Feis Ile is Bowmore open day, and you know the drill by now – a commemorative review is coming right here.

This time it’s a 15 Year Old Bowmore selected by Signatory and bottled exclusively for The Whisky Exchange. It’s hogshead 20117 (refill ex-bourbon) that was filled on 2/10/2001 matured for 15 years before being bottled on 23/8/2017

Bowmore 2001 15 Year Old Signatory Vintage for TWE (55.6%, £160, 233 bottles)

Nose: Soft, fruit mix juice with gentle and slightly wet peat, lemon, bread dough. After a few minutes very lemon-y but the fruits are clearer, there’s green melon, peaches and papaya.

Palate: Whoa where did it come from? Unlike the soft nose the palate is stinging, rich sweet barley sugar, wet and a bit mossy peat, dry smoke, minerals, a bit of salt, dusty, lemon and soot.

Finish: Medium length, lingering sweet sugar, sweet peat, dry smoke, minerals with sweet green fruits.

Thoughts: An excellent Bowmore whisky. TWE/Signatory teams did a great job here selecting a cask which delivers a well defined and crisp Bowmore with no huge cask influence. The only gripe I had with the release was the price as £160 seemed a bit excessive , but that’s the route we’re seeing in the last few years for whisky prices, but the whisky is excellent.