Review by: The Muskox

After starting our tasting with three excellent 25-year-old unpeated Old Particulars, we next moved down to Islay and up a step in Douglas Laing’s bottling range to an XOP (Xtra Old Particular). Wait a minute, this whisky is younger than the regular Old Particulars we tried! So what makes it Xtra? According to brand ambassador Stuart Baxter, it all comes down to the quality of the cask. Let’s see if this Bowmore has really earned that distinction!

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Distillery: Bowmore.

Bottler: Douglas Laing.

Region: Islay.

ABV: 57.6%. Cask strength.

Age: 21 years. Distilled in November 1998. Bottled in March 2019.

Cask type: Cask #DL13080, a refill hogshead.

Price: $690 CAD.

Color: Straw. Natural Color. Non-chill-filtered.

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Nose: Fragrant and salty, classic Bowmore. Pine boughs, sea salt, light tar, and heady flowers. Creamy tonkotsu ramen topped with char-grilled chashu pork steak, nori, and sesame seeds. Fruity notes of mango, pineapple, and citrus. Ginger, black pepper and spicy pancetta. Salted butter, slivered almonds, vanilla, and ocean breeze.

Palate: Oily texture. Rich ginger and flowers on the arrival, with pineapple, mango and hot beach sand. Sooty driftwood smoke and pure second-flush Darjeeling tea on the development, as well as delicate sweet notes of demerara sugar, malted barley, orange blossom, and hibiscus. Cedar planks, sea grass, and prosciutto towards the back.

Finish: Long and coastal. Seaside bonfire, cacio e pepe, oysters, and pine tar. Mango and chocolate caramels. Maple syrup cooking over an open fire in the melting March snow..

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Conclusion: This is like the platonic ideal of what a Bowmore should be. The flowers, seaside, tropical fruit, sooty smoke, that Darjeeling tea… This has the strongest Darjeeling note of any Bowmore I’ve tried, which for me is amazing. I could spend an hour just nosing this. I had a Ratatouille moment with that last note on the finish – I was back at the old-fashioned maple syrup demonstration at my local sugar shack that I went to as a kid every year. I mean, I still go there every year, but I used to as well.

Anyways, this is an outstanding bottling of one of my favourite distilleries. The last 10 mL of this sample is getting wrapped up for my ‘rainy day’ sample collection. Maybe I’ll bring it to next year’s maple syrup festival.

Final Score: 91.

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Scoring Legend:

• 95-100: As good as it gets. Jaw-dropping, eye-widening, unforgettable whisky.
• 90-94: Sublime, a personal favorite in its category.
• 85-89: Excellent, a standout dram.
• 80-84: Quite good. Quality stuff.
• 75-79: Decent whisky worth tasting.
• 70-74: Meh. It’s definitely drinkable, but it can do better.
• 60-69: Not so good. I might not turn down a glass if I needed a drink.
• 50-59: Save it for mixing.
• 0-49: Blech.