Review by: INSERT NAME HERE

I graduated with my Masters degree today, so I figured I needed to crack open a special sample! This is a birth-year (birth-month!) whisky from my sneaky-favourite Islay distillery, matured full-term in a PX sherry cask. Old PX Bowmore has a chance of being a mess, but the vintage is well past the FWP years and this whisky has an incredible Whiskybase score. All good signs!

---

Distillery: Bowmore.

Bottler: Carn Mor.

Region: Islay.

ABV: 53.4%. Cask strength.

Age: 23 years. Distilled December 9th 1996. Bottled September 7th 2020.

Cask type: Cask #901278, a Pedro Ximenez sherry butt.

Price: N/A, sample.

Color: Amber, even a bit pinkish. Natural Color. Non-chill-filtered.

---

Nose: Complex! Mostly fruity and fragrant, with the peat more in the background. Waxy and honeyed. A bucket of sweet fruits – red apples, strawberry shortcake, blood orange creamsicle, summer watermelon, raspberry tart, sugared grapefruit, toasted coconut, pineapple. Sandalwood, nutmeg, fennel seed, lime zest, and nutty oolong. Madeleines, espresso, and cocoa powder. A bit savoury and dirty: grilled hot peppers, leather, and potting soil.

Palate: Medium-thick texture. Sweet fruit upfront, turning drier – peach tea, pomelo, raspberry scones, brown sugar, and grandma’s apple cake. Cool Bowmore peat on the development, like mist in a pine forest after rain. Loads of fragrant, herbal, and nutty tea. Strong charred oak and a soft dusting of ash. Soft caramel chews, spearmint, olive oil, paraffin, and a broad selection of chocolate truffles. Red-on-the-inside plums.

Finish: Quite long, sweet but multifaceted. All kinds of fragrant teas. More sandalwood, wet rocks, mint, petrichor, and temperate rainforest waterfalls. Butter tarts and sugared almonds. Subtle peach and sour cherry pie. Softly earthy and savoury… black truffle?

---

Possible SMWS bottling name: “Petrichorchestra”

*This name also could be filed under “possible unreleased Mars Volta album”.

Conclusion: Surprise surprise, this is killer. It’s so complex and layered, especially on the nose, it was like every sip and sniff were different. The nose is almost too complex, whereas the palate and finish come across as much more cohesive. There’s super-sweet fruit, rich spice, heavy oak, fragrant peat… but it works! It’s like an inverse Bowmore Dawn, or rather, Bowmore Dawn as it should have been. There isn’t that much PX either, all things considered: this could have been a sherry bomb, but instead the peat has held up very well. And I just can’t get enough of those tea notes.

My point of comparison for this whisky is that Bowmore 21 XOP I tried a few months ago. That whisky had a real refined elegance to it, whereas this one is more of a blunderbuss. I think I prefer the XOP by just a hair, but I’m by no means disappointed by today’s pick.

Final Score: 90.

---

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.