Bowmore 27 Year Old Batch 5 TBWC

Profile:

Nose: Defined coastalness with brine, wet limestone, olive oil cake and breezy delicate smoke. Well-aged with background polish notes and a tartness and sharpness that increases over time, emphasising lemon peels, gooseberries, minerality and salinity. Reduction adds sour sweetness into the equation with Key Lime pie whilst also highlighting the peat influence further with some ashiness. Resting post dilution seems to be ‘thing’ also – a building umami meatiness develops with ham stock, and burnt ends. The very definition of complexity. Taste: The arrival has an oily viscosity as well as plenty of fruity character – sweet/sour – lemons, grapefruits and guava. Polish and wood varnish follow next, leading into a drum of fresh golden tobacco leaves. The mid-palate is more overtly maritime, with brine, pebbles and wet steel piers played off against vegetal flavours of moss, lichen and bracken. Long on the development, the back-palate introduces smoke – burnt meat fats, hospital floor cleaner, a faint tinge of rubber types and a good whack of salinity. The addition of water amplifies the coastalness with salt water, whilst also unleashing more peat elements – iodine and smoked fish. Resting brings out a medley of seafood with lobster and buttered scallops. Further resting introduces a lovely tropical note of pineapple, which marries perfectly into the intricate array of swirling and shifting flavours. A truly polygonal whisky. Finish: Long, tart with lemon zest, sweet with foam bananas, sharp with rocky outcroppings.