Personal notes on an evening of tasting

Glen Spey 21 - 2010 edition OB cask strength - potent wood spice &
highland fruit basket

Clynelish 29 Caledonia Selection 1972-2002 59.3% Incredible roses,
paraffin, complex fruits & sea air and salty pickle. The highlight of
the night - but there were many others

Bruichladdich 1970 OB 44.2% CS - Fruity & maritime, almost a twin to
the Clynelish - but slightly less floral & without the acid pickle
note.

Ben Nevis 34 1966 Black Adder Raw Cask 49.7% Unbelievable Chocolate
coffee & violets flavor signature with odd exotic incense perfume
notes. Another highlight

Bowmore 12 OB 43% bottled in 1960s or 70s w/ tax stamp for US. -
Unbelievably complex. Clams, hemp, honey, earth, old bottle mineral
notes, huge wet vinyl iodine sweet rich.. Wow! A highlight

Port Ellen 22 1982-2004 single Cask for PLOWED Douglas Liang 61.6%
Sweet dense lemons, and lemon drop candy,sea iodine, honey, road tar
turning to ash. Huge. Another highlight

Glen Grant 31 1971-2003 Black Adder Raw Cask 55.7% sherried. Black
walnuts, dark chocolate, bubble gum floral fruity sweetness, big
orchid dark floral. A stunning highlight!

Ended with a Balmonach 1961-1980 46% Cadenhead dumpy. Intense floral
incense fruit bomb. Palate was already blitzed. Should have had this
before the peat bombs.

Bowmore Tempest swirls rich sweet fruit and nut flavors with peat and tidal flats bitter tang.

I confess that I haven't been a huge fan of Bowmore over the decades. My feeling was that big rich expressions were expensive while the affordable entry models lacked intensity. Bowmores have a distinctive flavor profile that dials down Islay's usual big peat and sea air and dials up a nutty fruity aspect more typical of the Highlands. Bowmore Tempest is a cask strength expression aged in first fill bourbon casks for 10 years and served up without chill filtering or coloring. Batch one was lauded in 2009. The sample I'm drinking today is from 2010's Batch 2 (a sample from http://whiskysamples.flyingcart.com/). 2011's Batch 3 is the current offering. I've been anxious to try Tempest to see if they really achieved an affordable Bowmore that really nails their flavor profile in big bold strokes.

Bowmore Tempest 10 56% abv

OB first fill bourbon Batch 2 2010
Non-chill filtered no coloring added.

Color: rich golden amber

Nose: Sweet with toffee, and brazil nuts. Further nosing reveals almost Speyside-like fruity notes of honeysuckle, pear, and melon. There is spirit heat and some maritime salty airs and warm peaty smoky tinges. In the back there are some mineral notes of gypsum and granite. Complex, big, appetizing. Scrumptious.

Entry is huge with honey, toffee candy and then a big spicy expansion of prickly heat, oak, peat, and bitters. The bitters have herbal and also peat (tar and ash) flavor elements. At the finish the bitter fades to oak tannins and salty sea flats at low tide. Nutty, toffee, fruity, spicy, herbal peaty bitter oaky and salty maritime - these wildly divergent flavor elements kaleidoscope across the palate with each sip. Big, powerful, yet sweet and clearly sporting the Bowmore flavor signature DNA.

A wee drop of water amps up the honeyed aspect of the entry and raises the bitter of the peaty end of the mid-palate in higher relief. The putty notes of peat become clear in the nose among the nutty sweetness.

A wonderful richly flavored Bowmore. A sweeter more Highland style of Islay - yet clearly Islay to the core. It was 4 stars until I added a few drops of water. That just tipped it into 5. Succeeded they have. This is a big gutty richly flavored Bowmore that satisfies and then some.

*****