Bowmore 1997/2023 (46.1%, Berry Bros & Rudd for Kensington Wine Market, sherry butt, cask #85, 98 bottles)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: this is the epitome of how I think about late 1990s Bowmore in my mind: background fruitiness with pristine coastal brininess up front, all wrapped up in some surprisingly chunky peat smoke. There's also always this compelling and beautiful dryness about it, which is something that always seems to distinguish the indys from the officials in my view, the OBs rarely display their whisky in such an unvarnished guise. You could add dried seaweed, green tea with lemon, anchovy paste and guava jam into the mix - totally excellent! Mouth: what an arrival! Loads of dried exotic and citrus fruits, but also a terrific bitterness that encompasses bitter herbal liqueurs and extracts, artichoke liqueur, mixed olive tapenades, celery salt and this superb combo of hessian and tarred rope. The low ABV never feels low, in fact it manages to juggle power, drinkability and this rich diversity of flavour with embarrassing effortlessness. Finish: long, back on dried fruits, lemon oil, coconut water, olive tapenades, preserved lemons and thick wafts of pure peat smoke. Comments: Bowmore in full, classy stride. The only trouble is such bottles, at such perfect natural strengths, tend to be slightly...err... deadly... 
SGP: 665 - 91 points.

Bowmore 30 yo 1990/2020 (53.7%, Kingsbury for Club Qing, cask #3971, hogshead)
Colour: gold. Nose: pure and dry, with crystalline peat smoke, beach sand, seashells and impressions of seaweed in rockpools. Behind all that, some gentle but definite evocations of older, fruitier style Bowmore, with these delicate notes of pink grapefruit, guava and a tiny inclusion of passionfruit. In short: a gorgeous and highly meticulous nose that stands apart from the 1997 and feels like it belongs quite distinctly to the pre-1994 early 1990s style. With water: seaweed, waxes, camphor, mineral salts and crystalised exotic fruits. Still superbly elegant and finely detailed. Mouth: much peatier and richer than that elegant nose suggested, thicker peat smoke, yet still wonderfully drying, involving things like tarred rope, hessian, squid ink, smoked sea salt and black olive. One of those peaty profiles that shows gorgeous variations on umami. With water: tends more towards the fruitier aspects now, still retains much of this weighty and salty profile, but delivers more definite notes of grapefruit, star fruit and a little mango. Finish: long, back on crystalline, fine-grained peat smoke, bone-dry coastal impressions, lightly brewed exotic fruit teas and things like miso and dried seaweed. I also find the aftertaste quite medicinal. Comments: probably among the best Bowmores of these post-perfume vintages. This era could produce some slightly muddled profiles, but this feels wonderfully precise, elegance and shows great development. A snap in terms of score with the 1997. 
SGP: 465 - 91 points.