Bowmore 13 Year Old 1996 Commitment to Malt

Commitment to Malt is a Dutch whisky society founded by three franchise holders of Gall & Gall – a well-known Dutch chain of liquor stores. They have around 800 members, so it does not come as a surprise that their bottlings sell out quickly. This 13 years old Bowmore – already released a decade ago – is one such example.

The nose is a very pleasant mix of maritime elements of the spirit as well as lovely sweet notes from the sherry butt, making this Ileach offering the best of both worlds. Apricots, peaches, sultanas go hand-in-glove with sweet barley sugar and celp. It’s as if I am eating juicy fruit in the small fishermen’s wharf at Bowmore. The peat smoke is bigger than I am used to from this distillery. Delicious.

It’s more of the same on the palate, but the distillery character does dominate. Peat and sweet malt take the lead and give the dark fruit a hard time to show itself. Not for the lack of trying, though. The smoke is surprisingly big and the cask gave up quite some spices. But from the second sip forward a grand brackish note appears. This is a very pleasant surprise.

The finish is long, warm, spicy and sweet… with a salty death.

A very, very good Bowmore. Nowhere to be found now. Sold – a decade ago, mind you! – for some 65 EUR. How I wish I had stocked up on this.

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