Bowmore 15 yo 2001/2017 (56%, LMDW, Artist #7, hogshead, cask #20116, 275 bottles)
Colour: white wine. Nose: if we're talking artistic mediums then perhaps this would be minimalism, or abstraction? Very pure, singular, focused on maritime and coastal expressiveness, seaweed, bright citrus notes, with a tiny glimmer of something more exotic underneath that. With water: much smokier and ashier, on cigar ash, rolled cigarettes and hints of capers in brine. Mouth: same raw purity that displays the distillate front and centre. There's even almost some newmake elements on display, but in a good way. Impressions of old malt bins, kiln smoke, paraffin, ink, beach pebbles and white flowers etc. The purity is hard to argue with when the distillate is this impeccable. With water: ashes once again, pure brine, raw lemon juice, sheep wool, peat coals - excellent, and highly pure and specific once again. Finish: long, salty, drying, briny, mineral and taut. Comments: dazzling purity and impressive distillate on display. A whisky full of confidence! 
SGP: 456 - 89 points.

Bowmore 17 yo 2001/2018 (54.2%, Cadenhead's Malt Festival, Cameron's Choice, hogshead)
Colour: white wine. Nose: this one is more evocatively coastal, more scented with gorse flower, sandalwood, citrus peels, seashells and then fruitier notes of grapefruit and green apple emerge. There's a softness and elegance to this one which is immediately disarming. With water: seawater, mineral salts, chalk, kelp, pink grapefruit, lemon oil and camphor. A perfect sense of roundness and cohesion. Mouth: same feeling, a softer, more rounded profile, that is still quite drying, salty, coastal and citric, but manages to involve soft peat smoke, herbal teas, pine wood, camphor and things like nori, anchovy paste, chalk, beach pebbles and dried mango. With water: more exotic fruits come forward, mingling with that unmistakeable modern Bowmore 'wispy' peat smoke. Some gentle background medicines and hessian too. Finish: long, a perfect medley of everything that's come thus far, beautifully salty, fruity and vivid. Comments: great, pin-sharp, expressive, modern Bowmore at its most emblematic I would say. Bullet proof distillate. 
SGP: 565 - 90 points. 

Bowmore 19 yo ‘Feis Ile 2024’ (54.8%, OB, double-matured in virgin American oak barrels, 3,500 bottles)
New oak is up there with red wine in terms of 'alert triggers' for me. Colour: deep orangey gold. Nose: full of coconut, ground ginger, nutmeg and other assorted cupboard spices, a 'muted' background smokiness, some draff, damp grains. In time it wanders more into a syrupy and fruity direction, with some banana liqueur, mango pulp and more coconut milk. You feel the use of the oak has been done quite cleverly, but it's ironically far from the OBs in terms of levels of distillery character in evidence. With water: I think this works better now, it goes more decisively towards exotic fruit teas, dried mango, herbal bitters, lapsing souchong and camphor. Mouth: again the richness and assertiveness of the oak is immediately evidenced by quite a lot of spice, cedar wood, camphor, green peppercorns and ginger wine. There's also resinous fir woods, some nice herbal medicines and liqueur vibes and notes of pineapple cordial, tangerine and old-fashioned cocktail. With water: banana liqueur, herbal ointments, Manhattan cocktails, curry leaf and coconut once again. Full circle to oak derived spices and sweetness. Finish: medium, a little tannic and green, some pepper, ground ginger and strong herbal teas. Comments: it's fun and rather playful at times, and no doubt the new American oak has been handled with intelligence and care. My favourite part was the intermittent bursts of fruitiness, although they never quite manage to elevate the whole away from the oak, which remained just a little too much for me. I appreciate that the distillery owners would like to use these Festival bottlings to offer something different, however I also find the way they mask their own distillery character a little perplexing. Now, not every whisky can be matured solely in refill wood I accept. I suppose the key takeaway here is that this is a clever whisky, just not my preferred style. Please take my score with a large sporran full of salt. 
SGP: 664 - 83 points.

Bowmore 15 yo 1991/2006 'The Blacksmith's Bottling' (57.7%, Queen of the Moorlands, Rare Cask, 199 bottles)
An old series by David Wood, that sheltered many terrific and under the radar whiskies over the years. I was fortunate enough to attend some of their legendary/infamous tasting sessions to select bottlings at the sadly closed and utterly remarkable Earl Grey Inn. But of course, that was back in 2005/2006, so around three hundred years ago... Colour: deep gold. Nose: a stunning mix of this similarly pure, powerful, coastal and subtly fruity Bowmore house style, all entangled in what presents as some sort of magnificent leathery, slightly earthy, robust refill sherry. Camphor, putty, limestone, tar, iodine, dried kelp, black olives, miso - all the good umami stuff is on display! With water: wood resins, spiced orange marmalade, dried exotic fruits, mineral oil, heather ales and guava jam. Mouth: it's really quite peaty, that's what strikes first, more so than I usually find in these vintages. A big, earthy, mineral and salty peat profile, that once again involves lots of miso, black olive and tarred rope. Also some herbal liqueurs, camphor, hessian, salt-baked fish and seawater. With water: magnificent! All on eucalyptus resin, natural tar liqueur, hessian, cloves, black olive tapenade, seawater, bone-dry very old Oloroso and still these background traces of exotic fruits and aged orange peels. Finish: superbly long, salty, tarry and immensely peaty! Comments: I would love to know what kind of sherry cask this was matured in. An amazingly powerful and immensely peaty Bowmore that just seems to develop further in beauty and intensity at every step. A gem that's well worth seeking out. 
SGP: 566 - 92 points.