Some Bowmore for the cause


November 12, 2026

Some Bowmore for the cause

Bowmore is another distillery with plenty of new expressions about at the moment, especially from the indies. This time we’re picking them at random. No vertical today.

Bowmore 20 yo ‘Snarkitecture Release 2026 Edition 01’ (50.8%, OB, Captivo Collection, Oak Voyage)

‘
Oak Voyage’ sounds a little worrying. We’d have preferred ‘Distillate Journey’, but there… Now, it’s true that this is a collaboration with the design studio Snarkitecture. Anyway, it’s simply a finish in oloroso sherry butts. More finishing, yes, but please, let’s give our prejudices a rest… Colour: full gold. Nose: a rather gentle but very distinctive Bowmore, with a little fig leaf, then persimmon, guava and avocado, before a few seaweeds and some samphire put in an appearance. The peat keeps a low profile. With water: more sea breeze, a stroll along the pontoons in front of the distillery, and a little metal polish. Mouth (neat): really soft, with the somewhat PX-like oloroso keeping well in check, and everything coming together nicely around honey, sultanas and a rather lovely, slightly rubbery saltiness. With water: a gentler take on Bowmore, with enough of the distillate’s DNA still showing through. After the leaves, smoked figs, if there is such a thing. Finish: not terribly long, but with some lovely exotic touches. A little tinned sardine in the aftertaste. Comments: perhaps a stretch for the diehard Bowmore crowd, but rather charming for everyone else. A little dear, by the looks of it.
SGP:553 - 85 points.

Bowmore 20 yo 2005/2026 (56.2%, The Whisky Blues, Blind Selection, barrels, casks #81+82, 449 bottles)

I swear it’s pure chance that we’ve got another twenty-year-old here. This should be a piece of cake for this one, though… Then again, ‘Blind Selection’? Is that what we expect of our favourite indies? Fun wording anyway. Colour: white wine. Nose: a perfectly clear line of green apple, lemon juice, seawater, wakame, oysters, stewed apple and half a glass of Pouilly-Fumé. With water: more shellfish, winkles, clams, almonds… Mouth (neat): oilier in texture, with all its tension intact. Twelve litres of lime juice and six of lemon, plus seawater and two dozen oysters. The Pouilly-Fumé is still there, and it all fits together beautifully. With water: indeed. Perfect. Finish: long, sharp, almost restless, yet very precise. A very salty aftertaste. Comments: psst, between us, I’m not entirely sure this selection was made all that blind. Let’s keep that to ourselves, shall we?
SGP:466 - 90 points.

Bowmore 10 yo 2015/2026 (46%, Cadenhead, Original Collection, bourbon barrels)

Colour: white wine. Nose: mezcal, Jamaican rum of the 500 g of esters per hectolitre of pure alcohol persuasion, service berry eau-de-vie, pistachio ice cream (those two go together), fruit stones, then little flat oysters, really tiny ones. Mouth: a fruity Bowmore, with pear and lemon, plus three olives, that service eau-de-vie again and the inevitable oysters. This is excellent, actually. Finish: fairly long, with anchovies in brine coming in and a lemony, very salty, maritime signature. Comments: a magnificent young beastie from Cadenhead. We love it. The price looks friendly too, but as we always say, we don’t taste the price tags.
SGP:455 - 88 points.

Bowmore 22 yo 2004/2026 (49.2%, The Whisky Agency for Aren Trading, first fill barrel)

But where has all the Art Deco gone? Colour: straw. Nose: a nicely balanced Bowmore, shall we say, with smoked almonds, shellfish, ripe apple, seawater and precisely two drops of tincture of iodine. All rather soft and gentle. Mouth: considerably more action here, with seawater mixed with grapefruit juice mixed with hot Thai broth mixed with lime juice mixed with peanut butter (satay). This should go beautifully with prawns sautéed in garlic, shouldn’t it? Or prawns al pil-pil? Finish: long, and rather more settled again. Comments: a Bowmore that belongs in the kitchen, with dishes that are mostly Asian and very nearly all fiercely spiced. Funny how much gentler the nose was.
SGP:566 - 89 points.

Bowmore 15 yo 2010/2026 (59.4%, The Single Malts of Scotland, Elixir Distillers for LMDW Les Anthologistes, sherry cask, cask #4132)

Let’s say it. In La Maison du Whisky’s new collection, you’ll find ‘Anthologie’, ‘Anthologists’, ‘Anthology’ or ‘Les Anthologistes’ on the bottles or samples. There’s a touch of creative muddle about it all, so very French (I’m Alsatian), and I find it rather refreshing. Everyone knows it’s the same thing, and a little poetic licence, or a little looseness in the logic, can hardly do any harm. Right, let’s proceed… Colour: deep gold. Nose: now we’re talking. Richer, rounder, with more banana and mango liqueur, then ashes and cinders. You’ll howl, but it reminds us of a mix of certain Ben Nevisses and Lochside. I’m serious. They even had the same owner. With water: anti-rust paint! How funny, particularly by the sea… Mouth (neat): oh, this is good. Rich and powerful, with real zip, plenty of pepper and loads of passion fruit, mango and papaya… It’s terribly seductive. With water: much the same, though do try not to drown it. Coastal whiskies, did you know, aren’t necessarily very good swimmers. Finish: long and spot on all the way through. Comments: I’ll make even more friends with this, but in for a penny… How come it’s the indies that put out bottlings like this, and why, above all, don’t we see them from the distillery itself?
SGP:565 - 90 points.

Bowmore 9 yo 2017/2026 (57%, Lady of the Glen, Samhain series, 1st fill bourbon, cask #56, 268 bottles)

This bottle recalls the Scottish legend ‘Fionn slays the Kranna Dubh’. Lovely, provided you know how to say it when you walk into a whisky shop. Apparently, it’s ‘Finn slayz thuh Kranna Doo’. A tale about a dragon on Islay. Colour: gold. Nose: plenty of bone-dry cider and seawater, a little paraffin oil, discreet vanilla and an enormous platter of oysters. No sign of the dragon yet. With water: damp earth and beach sand, kelp and a little camphor balm. Mouth (neat): a very clean young Bowmore, salty, smoky, maritime and, above all, full of very sharp citrus, rather like finger lime. With water: it all softens, probably thanks to the barrel, while that brisk, salty citrus stays put. Finish: long, clean, finely chiselled, very lovely. Seawater and bitter almond milk in the aftertaste. Comments: something to fortify yourself with if you have to face the Kranna Dubh. There was already an official thirty-year-old Bowmore called ‘Kranna Dunh’ about twenty years ago, which surely corroborates the existence of the blasted dragon.
SGP:466 - 88 points.

Right, one last one…

Bowmore 20 yo 2005/2026 (56.3%, The Spirits Hunter, for HNWS Taiwan, refill barrel, 272 bottles)

In theory, all should go well here. Colour: pale gold. Nose: another gentler one, presumably thanks to its age, rather in the vein of the TWA above. Slightly smoky brine, shellfish, apples just turning overripe and a few little pieces of mango… With water: some rather sweet seaweed, cockles and winkles. Our friends the winkles! Mouth (neat): as is almost always the case with these Bowmores of twenty years or thereabouts, the palate has a sharper edge than the nose, and here it’s just magnificent. A cocktail of kiwi, passion fruit and mango juices with seawater, all in perfect sync. With water: and bang, it softens again, with almond milk, apple juice and still a little seawater, just two or three drops. Then it turns more medicinal, with antiseptic and iodine… Finish: not all that long, but beautifully balanced. Smoked, salted almonds and grey pepper. Comments: simply excellent, actually.
SGP:565 - 89 points.

Lovely session! Bowmores from the good indies just never disappoint, do they?

Check the index of all Bowmore we've tasted