Thursday, January 2, 2014

Bowmore Devil's Casks


The latest edition to the Bowmore line is the Devil's Casks, a ten year old first fill sherry cask "small batch" whiskey that weighs in at 56.9% abv.

Bowmore Devil's Casks, 10 yo, 56.9% abv ($100).

The nose hits you first with a dry but fruity sherry backed up with smoke. The palate is milk chocolate with peat (a new M&M flavor?). It's quite sweet but with much less sherry character than I would expect, though some of the sherry contributes to the milk chocolate note.  By the finish, the peat has clearly won over the sherry.

This is a decent malt, but the strong sweetness on the palate kicks it out of balance.  It's hard to recommend at the price, which is about $30 more than Laphroaig Cairdeas or Laprhoaig Cask Strength, both of which I prefer.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A little sad to see this review - had been reading lots of reviews that liked this, but I tend to agree with your reviews...witness the most recent Old a Forester BB, which was awful despite great press.

Having said that, I really loved Bowmore in the late 90's and early 00's - thought the 17-year and 25-year's were really interesting - very different than the Lagavulin-Ardbeg-Laphroig axis which I also love.

Are there any Bowmore's that you and the LAWS crew like?

-A

sku said...

I was disappointed in this one. On paper, it sounded great...10 years old, cask strength, first fill sherry. I really wanted it to be amazing, but it was just okay.

I generally do like Bowmores, though I haven't gone through their basic expressions in a while.