Bowmore Cask Strength

Just got a bottle of Bowmore Cask Strength as a gift. No-where on the bottle -- nor on the website! -- does it say anything about the age of this whisky. So, does that mean it is six years and one day?

cheers,

Henry

Reply to
Henry
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On 2007-09-23, Henry (aka Bruce) was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

The Legend is 8 years old I hear.

I acidentally brought one home when I saw the presentation canister labelled as 12 years, in amongst all of these Legend canisters. Turned out there was a legend inside of it as well, that had erroneously been put in the wrong canister.

Bad thing about living in a small rural town -- unable to obtain fresh supplies of essentials like sushimi quality fish and the more interesting varieties of SMS rather than 10 yo Glenfiddich and Glenlivet. I took the wrongly labelled Legend back and tried to get them to bring in some real 12yo, and they tried but gave up in the end.

Reply to
TimC

The age is indeed unspecified, but I doubt it's all as young as six. Most all whiskies are blends of old and young whiskies. Even single malts. For it to be called a Scotch Whisky, it only has to be 3. The age statement only refers to the youngest of the malts in the mix, so even a 10yearold whisky will probably have some older things in it. I guess what I'm getting at is age shouldn't be an important factor. If you like the whisky, drink it :) Age statements are just marketing.

Colin.

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Whisky reviews for peat sake!

Reply to
ColinL

Thanks for the clarification. I mis-remembered; I thought the minimum was six, which is why I said 'six and a day'.

Well, this is of course true but, on the other hand, it's also meaningless. It's like saying 'If you like yellow ties, wear them :-)' or 'If you like Chevrolets, drive them :-)' etc., etc.

Sorry, but this is absurd. A statement like 'Look at this iPod! Isn't it cool?!?' is a marketing statement, with its implicit message: ['Buy one and you too can be cool'.] Since it depends entirely on the belief that iPod = cool, it's as unverifiable as yellow tie = cool or Chevrolet cool.

'This whisky is 18 years old', on the other hand, is a statement of fact, which the distiller had damned-well better be able to substantiate with provenance and blending records. I understand that the age stated on the label refers to the youngest of the components in the final mix and that even a single malt can comprise spirits produced at different times (as long as they are all from the same still!). [Hey, I've been to Islay and I toured six of the seven, including Bowmore.] Nevertheless, in my opinion the absence of an age statement is problematic. Since they boast about everything they legitimately can boast about, when they _don't_ boast, it's like a sign that there's something wrong.

cheers,

Henry

Reply to
Henry

"Henry" skrev i melding news:1i596uj.shk3pc1s7qav3N% snipped-for-privacy@eircom.net...

That's wrong... With no statement you will be sure that you'll have a young whisky, above legal minimum. It doesn't imply in any way that there's something wrong with it.

Actually, there are some real good young ones out there, and some awful old ones with only 'old age' to show for them, marketwise. Any whisky peaks at some age and then declines. It used to be said that 12 years was optimal and that whiskies went "slimy" when older... :-) Whatever, it is true that indvidual casks behave differently and that only a small minority yields top notch stuff as time passes by.

Anders

Reply to
Anders Tørneskog

I, too, picked up a bottle of Bowmore Cask (NAS) because the price was in line. I'll open it this weekend. Personally, I don't give as much attention to age as I used to. Older bottles will cost more because of warehousing and amortization considerations. The problem with putting an age on a bottle is that if 95% of the whisky is, say, 18 years old, and the blender found the perfect cask of 5 year old to top it off, they can't sell the bottle as 18 yr, they'd have to sell it as a 5 yr which would be misleading, though accurate according to the "rules."

I've found that I prefer the younger Islays on a price to taste comparison. Laphroig 10 is just over $30US here. The 15 is outstanding, but there is less smoke and more sherry and it's, of course, more expensive. Better? Well, perhaps better "balanced", but not better, just different. Compare price and the 10 wins.

Bowmore got some bad press a few years ago, but the last bottle of Legend I had was a nice dram. Michael Jackson left us with ratings around 80 for the bottle a couple of years ago. Haven't had one recently which is why I bought the Cask NAS.

Reply to
mdavis

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