Bowmore Devil's Casks Limited Release Batch #1 (2013) 70cl
An INCREDIBLY RARE hard to even find anymore bottle. The limited run of 6,000 bottles sold out very quickly upon their release.
A limited edition release from Bowmore using a marriage of first fill Oloroso & Pedro Ximenez Sherry casks. This first batch was released in October 2013, this release from Bowmore barely even reached retailer shelves. The delicious combination of peated whisky and sherry wood maturation strikes again.
Matured exclusively, and unusually, for 10 years in the finest first fill Sherry casks, which help to bring out Bowmore’s hot and fiery characteristics, this small batch release is, quite simply, devilishly good!
If you like Bowmore then this stuff is some of the best and finest liquid ever to be created. Every dram of this is just majestic. We cannot praise this highly enough and all we want to do is open it!
If a zombie apocalypse came and we were locked away with this, we almost would not even mind that civilization is collapsing around us from how good a Devil's cask Bowmore is!
"Legend has it that the Devil once visited the church in Bowmore...a circular church built such that there are no corners for the Devil to hide....and then chased by the locals into the Bowmore distillery, the story as it is told....the Devil finally escaped in a cask of Bowmore bound for the mainland"
Tasting Notes
Nose : Old leather, dirty vegetal smoke and sour fruits. Tanned hides, damp cloth and sofa from a land taste forgot are combined with smoke that’s part greasy and industrial and part garden bonfire – it’s a damp and oily peat, picking up plenty of forest mosses and lichen. The fruit influence is less palpable than I was expecting from 1st fill sherry and red wine – it’s rather murky, subsumed, dry and acrid – certainly cherries and berries, along with under ripe plums. In the background, shale beaches and rocky outcroppings with a note of heavy cloying stale perfume. Reduction improves things with a brighter fruit influence as well as chocolate orange and a meatier smoke of burnt ends and beef juices.
Palate : The arrival is fresher and livelier but still quite leathery and vegetal. Blackberries, cranberries, cherries and oranges moving into car seats, handbags, damp soils and bracken. The mid-palate starts to get gloomy once again with steeped black tea, week-old spent tobacco and molten rubber. The back-palate unleashes the wood influence – bitter, tannic and with an abundance (over?) of spices – intense cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Reduction brings out some chocolate and toffee flavours as well as (after some time in the glass) reducing both the acrid and the spice notes down to more palatable levels.
Finish : Medium, leathery smoke with chilli spice, cinnamon and pepper.
About Bowmore
Bowmore is located in the centre of Islay and occupies a central role in the island’s whiskies. The distillery has retained its own floor maltings which account for 40% of its needs and when mixed with malt from the mainland results in a medium peated spirit.
Its smoke, reminiscent of beach bonfires, mingles with a distinctly saline note, flowers, cereal, citrus and underneath a touch of tropical fruit. It is this character which, when matured in refill casks for a long period of time, becomes the primary aroma, the peat seemingly disappearing completely.
A significant percentage of the make is aged in ex-Sherry butts which take Bowmore off in another direction – one of dark fruits, chocolate, coffee, citrus and smoke. The extensive range picks and chooses between these extremes. A significant percentage of the distillery’s whisky is matured on the island, with the distillery’s No.1 Vaults being held to have the most extraordinary microclimate. This chill, damp environment – the vault is below the level of Loch Indaal and one wall makes up the town’s sea wall – is seen as ideal for long-term maturation.
There are claims that Bowmore’s distillery started operation in 1779, but there’s no evidence of whisky being made until a certain John Simpson took out a licence in 1816. It wouldn’t be until 1837 when the Glasgow blending firm, Wm & Jas. Mutter took over that it began to gain traction and reputation. In 1841, Windsor Castle requested a cask of Bowmore – this being a time when the English palate was considered too delicate (or Scotch too bold). As often happens, the distillery passed through a number of hands before in this case it was bought, in 1963, by broker Stanley P. Morrison. The Morrison era saw the start of what is recognised as a legendary period in Bowmore’s history – its mid-1960s bottlings are legendary.
The distillery was substantially modernised with an innovative heat recovery system not only cutting down on fuel bills but creating sufficient excess hot water to heat the town’s swimming pool. In 1989 the Japanese distiller Suntory bought a stake in the distillery and took full control in 1994, the year after the ground-breaking Black Bowmore was launched. This 100% Sherry-aged release was sold for what at the time was seen as the ludicrously inflated price of £100.
In 2014 Suntory bought Jim Beam which, from an Islay perspective, sees two of Islay’s most iconic single malts (Bowmore and Laphroaig) under the same ownership.
56.9% ABV
70cl
