Another day, another distillery open day on Islay and today is Bowmore day at Feis Ile 2015!
Bowmore, the oldest distillery on Islay released a straight forward ex-bourbon whisky but it’s a first fill cask so extra fruitiness and sweetness are expected. Right?
Bowmore Feis Ile 2014 (56.1%)
Nose: Young at nose. at least at first, as it’s light with young maltiness and sweet peat. After it settled in the glass there are spices, pears and green apples, pastry dough but the peat profile is very bowmore-y. Continue reading
Nose: Rich nose! sweet fruity nose backed up by strong and solid yet no sharp edges Laphroaig peat with smoke, iodine and TCP. Giving it a minute or two in the glass the fruits get sharpened a bit and there’s also lemon and sugar coated stone fruits. Here comes the brine and salt. Overall it’s a very wet and soft yet recognizably Laphroaig.
Nose: Sweet peat and tropical fruits with strong papaya and banana notes. Sour unripe forest fruits, yellow plums and sour bitter oak. Slowly the peat smoke rises up with charcoal and touch of medicinal/iodine note but the sweetness fights back and the balance is between the sweet and peat is rolling back and forth. With water it’s sweeter, fruitier and almost flowering. 
Nose: Sweetness and peat with sweetness at first dominating the nose. Lemon and coconuts, a bit oily. With time there are ashes on the nose. With water it’s spicier and bring out a huge coconut concentration. 
Nose: Very restrained, showing lots of fruitiness on the front seat and some peat smoke in the background. I doesn’t smell like a very peated whisky (like Octomore) but I guess we can attribute it to the quadruple distillation (and casks selection). Citrus (oranges and lemon), creamy cereals, vanilla. on the back there’s the smoke, wood smoke and damp peat. 
Nose: sherry impact of berries, a bit dry, sweet honeyed vanilla and caramel, raisins, fruity. Rich and oily and just classic. 
Nose: The wine impact is very strong here. Sweet and rich and definitely not drying. Wine and fruity, I wonder if the refill bourbon casks were 1st fill for max flavors as it does feels like that. After letting it breath in the glass, there’s less wine impact and more Bourbon impact and after adding some water there were still some grapes notes in it. 
Nose: apples,pears, coconut, vanilla custard, spiciness, white pepper at first that it calms down and we get creamy and malty notes. Zesty, some dried fruits in background and sherry spices. 
Nose: A very relaxed nose as the maturation age is noticeable here. The nose harbors some herbal edge, old sweet grain, banana, sweet honey, sweet kumquat, coconut and dare I say there’s even some wax note here. 
Whisky Gospel 