Bowmore Vault Edition First Release Atlantic Sea Salt

So, Bowmore’s latest (but certainly not greatest) NAS Series is called the Vault Editions. There is supposed to be a series released annually (IIRC) and each one will be sort of sub-titled by the flavor profile they are aiming for with each batch. This is the First Edition and it is called Atlantic Sea Salt. Bowmore is focusing the initial release based on their infamous Vault No. 1, which is technically below sea level and imparts most of the salty and briny notes to most of their releases. The color here is dull gold and it doesn’t have much leg action, and due to the higher ABV of 51.5% it doesn’t leave many water droplets around the rim when you spin it. I don’t believe this is a true cask strength bottling, but it is much higher than any standard release. The nose delivers on all cylinders with the salty aspects: brine and salted fish dominate from the opening and they don’t fade at all, even after 15-20 minutes. There’s pine and sawdust swirling around along with some odd lemon, cleaning solution that sting the nose a bit. The typical Bowmore smoke is drowned out to the point it reminds me just of lightly charred oak. Happily, the sulphuric notes I detect in a lot of Bowmore is well hidden. The salt on the palate doesn’t hide the smoke here, thankfully and some earthy peat notes drift through while leaving that lemon Pledge flavor and faint sulphuric to fight over which may offend you a little more. The ABV kicks in mid sip and forces most of the offensive notes away. The finish is medium in length, but boy is it hot. Some harsh oak tannins and lemon zest really add zip here, but they really kill the mouthfeel a lot. The young juice doesn’t help matters at all. Hot and dry is the theme here. Overall, there are parts I like: grilled lemon fish on the nose and palate, but there are parts I hate: the finish is abrasive as hell and it lets a bit of the sulphuric notes back into play. Those notes are the sole thing that ruin a lot of Bowmore’s core range for me. I particularly love the higher ABV bottles and the extremely well-aged stuff from these guys, but the high ABV here can’t overcome the saltiness or the sulphur and for that I gotta ding it on the score. This bottle also ran about $88, which is still way too much for what you get. I hope the next Vault Edition is better than this one. 2.5-2.75 stars. Cheers.

Bowmore tasting evening at The Oak Barrel, Sydney, June 26th 2019: Whisky #5 Nose: Brine, seaweed, anchovies, citrus fruit and brackish vanilla. A dry resinous woody quality along with the ubiquitous Bowmore citrus characteristic. The smoke has a peculiarly captured and constrained character. I don't quite know how to explain it - it's as though most of the smoke has been artificially removed. Some dark floral hues show up, but salt dominates. Palate: A briny, spicy, sweet, hot and smoky arrival that extends through the development becoming dry as it unfolds. I could be describing mezcal instead of whisky. The development is disappointingly simple - lemon, brine and tannins ... and more brine. There are some pleasant smoke notes but on the whole it's pretty one-dimensional and most oddly it's also mild in overall character. Finish: Medium/long. Salty and dry evolving into a dusty cocoa aftertaste. This is a very tightly locked down and overly salty whisky. With water the character expands and gains some much-needed sweetness and balance ... until it suddenly falls apart. This was the first of a series of expressions intended to explore the “four pillars” of the Bowmore profile, and it focuses on salt (a pillar of salt ... hmm). However this whole approach seems fundamentally flawed to me. If these four characteristics are equally important then why create an intentionally unbalanced expression? It has some interesting features but for me it was like a flawed version of Tempest No. 6, and the killer is that this below average whisky is more expensive than Bowmore 18. "Adequate" : 74/100 (2.25 stars)

One of the funniest recurring motifs in The Fantastic Mr. Fox is how characters keep referring to the main character's son Ash as a little "different" (with a signature hand gesture, to boot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uaClHZVvD0). This Sea Salt special release of Bowmore is definitely *waves hands around* different. It's not bad-different, exactly, and not amazing-different, just . . . different. Salt wasn't the dominant theme to my palate. Instead, this one tasted young, medicinal, and herbal, with heavy doses of acidic citrus and a slight drying effect that left me with a puckering sensation. That astringency may read as salt to some. This is a dram that doesn't taste like anything else I've encountered in Bowmore's lineup, and reminds me more of peated Bunnahabhain or some of the oddities that one would find from Bruichladdich. To the extent the goal was to create something entirely novel out of Bowmore's distillate, they accomplished that goal. Now the only question is whether people really want to pay $125+ for it.

Nose is soft and sweet, like a spring meadow and hints of caramel. It is sweeter than I expected, and the sweetness lingers on the tongue. But man, does this have a bite, that numbs the tip of your tongue and burns your throat. A touch of water softens it up nicely. There is the lightest hint of smoke and peat.

There's sea salt on the nose for sure, but also grilled lemons and perhaps kelp. A drop of water brings out a puff of minty smoke. Lemon and pears on the palate and a tangy, creamy smoke. Long salty finish. Quite delicious, I much prefer this to the sweeter core range.

smells like salty fish straight out of the ocean, slightly slightly smoked tastes how it smells but the smoke is a like stronger. I preferred it neat rather than with ice. Although the ice brought out the salt and pepper after taste