Bowmore 1991-2009 - 18 Year Old - The Whisky Castle - Single Cask 2058

Constructed in 1779, Bowmore is Islay’s oldest distillery and dominates the island’s capital. After changing hands several times early in the 20th century, Bowmore distillery was bought by Stanley P. Morrison in 1963 and embarked on a golden era. This lasted until the early 1980s, when a strangely soapy character took hold in Bowmore’s spirit, before another run of extraordinary quality in the 1990s. The Japanese firm Suntory took full control of Bowmore in 1994, the year after the first release of Black Bowmore, a legendary whisky that catalysed the prestige whisky market.

Early official bottlings of Bowmore are highly sought after, particularly the Sherriff’s bottlings, the stunning Bicentenary editions, and the 1950s-70s vintage editions that appeared from the early 1980s. The modern Bowmore 1964 Trilogies and subsequent prestige bottlings are also fiercely contested by deep-pocketed fans, as are the numerous fabulous old indie bottlings of 1960s vintages by Samaroli, Giaccone, Duncan Taylor, Signatory and others.

An institution in the Highland village of Tomintoul, where it was founded in 1904, The Whisky Castle is a family-run independent retailer and whisky bottler with a long but infrequent history of releasing some exceptional single malt whiskies.

The Whisky Castle began bottling their own-label single malts and blended whiskies in the early 1990s, and their Castle Collection range has included excellent drams from distilleries including Lochside, Ben Nevis, Caol Ila, Glenallachie, Bowmore and Springbank. The Whisky Castle’s releases are bottled without colouring or chill filtration and recent bottlings have been at either 46% or cask strength.