Review by: The Muskox
I love Bowmore but hate their official bottlings. I don’t know quite what they’re doing over there, but whoever puts their whisky together must have a very different palate from me. When their distillate isn’t messed with, and is just bottled as a single cask, it’s some of my favourite whisky in the world. Here’s an OB Bowmore that I have hopes will finally be good.
Distillery: Caol Ila.
Bottler: Official bottling.
Region: Islay.
ABV: 55.5%. Cask strength.
Age: 8 years. Distilled in March 2014. Bottled in October 2022.
Cask type: #DL16768, a refill barrel.
Price: N/A, sample.
Color: 0.2, Pale straw. Natural Color. Non-chill-filtered.
Nose: It’s Caol Ila, that’s for sure. Cool, salty smoke with green-apple tartness. Hints of meatiness, smoked pork maybe. Icing sugar.
Palate: Medium-light body. Rather intense and carbolic. Pulled pork with vinegar sauce. Earthy malted barley, a bit of chocolate. Cucumber and eucalyptus.
Finish: Fairly short. Pork fat, reeling back to rice vinegar and lemon. Lingering barbeque soot. Cucumber again, but slightly bitter.
Conclusion: It can be hard to score these young, cask-strength, refill-matured Caol Ilas against each other given how similar they tend to be, but the features I like to look for is clarity of the citrusy-grassy note, the presence of minerality and salinity, and richness in the peat flavour. On those merits, to my palate, this whisky doesn’t perform overly well. There’s a bit of a brutishness and bitterness without much corresponding freshness. I like the pork fat note but beyond that the dram seems rather disjointed. Overall, I think this dram lands in the lower half of the genre for me in terms of quality. Compare, for example, the 8-year-old Caol Ila K&L pick from the Thompson Bros., bottled the same year as this one, for a more successful example of the style.
Final Score: 78.
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.
