Bowmore Vintner’s Trilogy 27-Year Port Cask
48.3% ABV - Islay, Scotland
Nose: Ripe fruit, candied orange, and a dash of smoke. Florals, cooked fruit, candied ginger and spices in the background.
Taste: Explosion of juicy, cooked fruits and sweet woody chocolate, with salty smoke and a dash of tropical fruit leading into the finish.
Finish: Dried fruits, flowers, lingering smoke. Medium length.
The Bowmore 27-Year Port Cask is the oldest release (by one year) of the three releases in the Vintner’s Trilogy. It’s definitely a special bottle and definitely a tasty bottle. Although this felt very unaffordable at the time… it cost a fraction compared to the latest 27-year release from Bowmore (which is more than twice the price!) I will miss this one once it’s gone—but it is still a healthy half full.
I don’t think it is common to find Bowmore aged in Port casks. It seemed to be a more popular cask choice for stock laid down in the late 80s and early 90s—whisky that waited until the mid-2000s to be released. It’s possible that this Vintner Trilogy release is using a second fill Port cask, where the first maturation might have been Bowmore Dawn (another Port cask release that came out around 2005.) In some sense though, I feel the Port cask is realllly detectable so it must have been a more active first cask, i.e. first fill.
Perhaps I am dreaming. I rated Bowmore Dawn very highly when I finally found a dram to taste—a wee bit higher than this one!
Details: Aged for 13 years in ex-Bourbon barrels and then 14 years in Port pipes. Third (and final) release in the Bowmore Vintner’s Trilogy.
Tasting Notes (Official): Meticulously double matured, this expression is a triumph of masterful distillation. A luxurious balance of sweet, spice, salt and peat smoke, hints of heath and rosemary on the nose, lead to salt sweet sugarplums and caramel with a tobacco and cranberry finish.
Tasted 29 November 2023. (Posted 8 February 2024.)
