Islay Violets - Bowmore - 33 y/o - Elixir Distillers - 46,2
Photo taken somewhere in Stuttgart
Usually, we don't associate suaveness and flowers when we're speaking about Islay malts. This is more to be found in the Lowlands or with some Speyside distilleries. Still it's no secret that some Bowmores of the 80's tend to be soapy and flowerish.
Nose
The first impression brings you into a turkish hamam, shrouded in thick and dense clouds of steam, that is impregnated with plenty of essential oils, just like lavender (a lot of it!), lilac and sandalwood. There is also strong and sweet waxiness of bees wax and a lot of sea salt peeling. What a pleasant massage for the nose. Blind we would have said this smells more like old school Talisker. The distinctive dustiness/earthiness of Bowmore is completely missing here. Yet the nose is brillant. Due to the low strength we won't add any water.
Palate
Holy Molly, there we have the beforementioned soapiness, which turns out to be really bold. Sorry guys, but that's definitely an off-note. Besides that we get burnt honey wax in brine. We feel like being taken back to the time when we were kids, drinking soap sud while splashing in the bath tube (every kid does that, okay!). There is also a bitter tone of grapefruits and fermented oranges.
Finish
Actually longer than we've wished it to be, with Marseille soap, new plastics accompagnied by really old grapefruit and orange peels.
Rating
What a confusing and ambivalent experience we've just had. For us it's really the first time that the quality of the nose is so radically different from the quality of the taste. Damn, it's like being appetized by the smell of a great stew, which turns out to be oversalted. Mind you, many a cook was keel-hauled for such things back then. But that nose....
