MINT JULEP ON THE ISLAY SHORE – Score: 9/10
Bowmore has been making whisky on the shores of Loch Indaal since 1779, and its No. 1 Vaults – sitting partly below sea level – are often credited with giving the spirit its gentle maritime soul. It is also one of the few distilleries still turning its own barley on traditional floor maltings. Twenty years in a cask is a long conversation with that sea air, and this one, distilled in 2001 and bottled in 2022, has clearly been listening.
This is number 12 in La Maison du Whisky’s Artist series: cask #102, finished in a first-fill sherry butt and bottled at a full 54.8% ABV, with just 665 bottles to go round. With a label this blue, you half expect the whisky to taste of the sky. It doesn’t – it tastes of something far better.
The first surprise is freshness: a cool wave of mint, as if someone had left a sprig in the glass, followed by ripe white peach – juicy, delicate, almost perfumed. Then the island speaks up, with a clean, briny iodine note that never shouts but never leaves either. The sherry finish has been handled with restraint, adding a soft layer of raisins rather than burying the distillate under a dried-fruit avalanche.
On the palate the texture is pure silk, gliding across the tongue despite the cask strength. Peach and raisin take turns, the iodine keeps everything honest, and the mint returns on a long, elegant finish. A superb, beautifully balanced Bowmore – the kind of bottle that makes you check how many are left on the shelf.
