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Holiday Shopping Guide: Ten Great Whiskies To Buy

Filed under: Spirits

There are few things a whiskey connoisseur likes better under the tree than a long, festively wrapped box containing something special.

It has been a good year for new whiskey expressions, so there is no shortage of options. And I would recommend something new to the market to help the receiver usher in a new year.

Sure, you can buy your Glenmorangie or Glenlivet loving gift recipient a bottle of 12-year old. But put a bit more thought into it, and a bit more brass, and you can turn a grin into a broad smile. For holiday gift-giving, I always thing it's better to give someone a limited edition or otherwise special expression of the brand they prefer. The other route to go is to introduce them to something unique in the category that will capture their interest and sense of curiosity.

These days, almost every brand of Scotch, Irish or American whiskey has a "special," whether it's a single-barrel, cask-strength, extra-aged or barrel-finished.

Here are some gift suggestions of new whiskies Luxist has tried this year and reviewed. Most of these will be found at better whiskey shops in major cities, as well as duty-free travel retail, rather than the corner store.

Gallery: Holiday Shopping: Ten Great Whiskies

Tags: Amrut, Ballantines Scotch, Bowmore, Compass Box, Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, Glenmorangie, holiday gift guide, Jim beam, Whiskey gifts, whisky gifts, WhistlePig

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Bowmore Announces the Exclusive Tempest Single Malt

by Noah Joseph (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits

Arguably more so than any other region in Scotland, Islay has long since established itself as a favorite among scotch whisky drinkers. The windswept isle is home to an inordinate number of distilleries, but Bowmore wants us to remember that it was there first. And to that end they've released an exclusive new small-batch bottling called Tempest.

Named after the beating waves of Loch Indaal that have slapped against the Bowmore distillery since its establishment in 1779, Tempest has been aged for ten years, embracing the peaty and smokey flavor while balancing it intricately. It's the second small batch bottling released recently by Bowmore, but the first being made available in North America. Arriving on shelves in December – right on time for the holiday season to the potential delight of the scotch connoisseur among your loved ones – the Bowmore Tempest carries a suggested retail price of $100.

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Tags: bowmore, bowmore tempest, islay, scotch, scotch whisky, single malt, small batch, tempest, whisky

Bowmore 40-Year Old and 1981 Vintage Released

by David Kiley (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits

Scottish Islay distillery Bowmore has launched two outstanding limited edition whisky expressions - Bowmore 40 Years Old and the Bowmore 1981.

Bowmore distillery is located on the western Scottish Island of Islay. It was founded in 1779 by John Simpson, making it the oldest of the eight distilleries on the island and one of the oldest in Scotland.

The new 1981 has been bottled at 49.6% ABV and will retail at approximately £270 each. There are only 402 bottles and it has been maturing in ex-bourbon casks for 29 years. The color of the Bowmore 1981 is light for its age, with a golden color bordering on yellow. Strong vanilla, honey and floral notes here, with a hint of the iodine common among Islay malts.

For the 40-year old, which sells for £6500, each bottle (there are just 53) is individual and made of hand blown crystal glass adorned with images of rocks from Islay and sitting on a thick plinth of Islay slate. The whisky has been aged in a single carefully selected ex-bourbon cask and has been bottled at 44.8% ABV. The color of the 40 is dark amber, and the dominant taste notes are butterscotch, raisins, dates and prunes and a trace of banana. There is hint of peat.

Tags: Bowmore, Bowmore 1981, Bowmore 40-year old, Islay malt, single malt, whisky

Big Dollars for Rare Macallan and Glenfiddich Single-Malts

by David Kiley (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits

A rare single malt has sold at auction for over £12,000, becoming the most expensive bottle of 60-year-old Macallan ever recorded.The whisky was at the center of an international bidding war at the world's largest whisky auctions in Glasgow this week. It was sold for £12,350 to an anonymous collector from New York.

The rare whisky, a bottling of three barrels distilled between 1926 and 1928, was one of more than 700 lots in the McTear's Rare and Collectible whisky sale. Macallan whiskies routinely top the list of most highly prized vintage whiskies. Others that usually draw high prices include Glenfiddich, Bowmore, Springbank, Glenmorangie, Highland Park and Ardbeg. A 73-year old bottle of Glenfiddich, one of the rarest single-malt whiskies in the world, is expected to fetch £20,000 when it is auctioned next month. There were only 61 bottles of this vintage produced. The sale will be held at Bonhams of Edinburgh, Scotland on June 16.

Tags: bonhams, Bowmore, Glenmorangie, Highland Park, macallan scotch, scotch, scotch whisky, single malt, Springbank, whisky

$24,000 Bowmore Trilogy Stars in Christie's Spirits Sale

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits, Auctions

On Nov. 14 Christie's will auction fine spirits in New York for only the second time since Prohibition began in 1920, headlined by the first U.S. offering of the extremely rare 1964 Bowmore Trilogy of single malts estimated at up to $24,000. Some $2 million worth of wines and spirits will cross the auction block, including over 40 lots of carefully-curated whisky, bourbon, cognac, armagnac, and rum, plus a fine crop of champagne. The Bowmore Trilogy, comprised of White, Black and Gold Bowmore, was matured below sea level for 42 - 44 years at the famed distillery on Islay in Scotland. Other lots include the Ardbeg Double Barrel, a two-bottle lot sourced from two 1974 whisky barrels in a bespoke leather shotgun case with eight solid silver cups, estimated at $15,000 - $20,000, and a 100 year old armagnac from Baron de Sigognac, est. at $2,000 - $3,000.

[via Duncan Quinn]

Tags: armagnac, Bowmore, Christies, Islay, New York, NewYork, Prohibition, Scotch, Scotland, single malt, SingleMalt, whiskey, whisky

A Golden Retriever, Now in Liquid Form: Gold Bowmore Completes the Trilogy

by Jonathon Ramsey (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits

Trilogies are uncertain things: after a fabulous introductory act you never know which way progress will decide to turn, and it is far more common for the second and third installments to veer the way of uninspired, if not downright awful. Bowmore, the maker of full-bodied scotches on tucked among the Hebrides, has worked for 45 years to avoid that trend with its latest troika. First there was Black Bowmore in 2007, White Bowmore in 2008, and now Gold Bowmore makes the play complete.

Distilled on November 5, 1964 the 84.8% proof scotch has been matured in three bourbon casks and one Oloroso sherry cask in Bowmore's Number 1 vault, tucked below sea level. When the resulting elixirs were married, the Oloroso cask's sherry and walnut hues found their way into the mix, imbuing the final liquid with "a darker, reddish-amber" tint. Or perhaps it should be called the final nectar: the aroma is described a combination of passion fruit, papaya, and vanilla. Add that to Bowmore's trademark smoky peat undertones, and you could have something special in your hands.

There will be 701 bottles of the gold version, the smallest number among the three. What will not be smallest is the price: $6,250 for a hand-numbered bottle in a Burr Elm box. Although that price might seem untoward, you can look at it as an asset -- an unopened set of Bowmore's first trilogy, released in the early nineties, sold for $17,530 at auction in 2007. Even if you do spend six large on a bottle of Gold Bowmore and then thought better of it, we don't think you'll be sorry -- buyer's remorse has probably never tasted so good.

[Source: Bowmore]

Tags: black bowmore, BlackBowmore, bowmore, gold bowmore, GoldBowmore, scotch, scotch whiskey, ScotchWhiskey, spirits, whiskey, white bowmore, WhiteBowmore

1965 Bowmore Single Malt Scotch Whisky

by Laura Malesich (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits

If your palate craves the creme-de-la-creme of Scotch whisky than you're about to be treated to a sensual experience...if you can get your hands on one of the fifty-seven bottles produced. Bowmore's 1965 Single Malt Scotch Whisky is only the second single malt produced at Bowmore since the Queen visited in the 1980's which makes it all the more covetable. Matured in bourbon and a percentage in Oloroso sherry casks it carries a special essence marked by the premium peat grown on the island of Islay where Bowmore is located. Islay's malts are characterized by smokey, marine aromas and palate and this particular single malt speaks of fruity and floral aromas paired with smoked oak chips. The one-liter bottle of honey colored Scotch whisky is priced at £6,000 and is available for sale exclusively at Heathrow Terminal 5.

[via Lussorian]

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Tags: 1965 bowmore, 1965Bowmore, bowmore, bowmore scotch whisky, bowmore single malt, BowmoreScotchWhisky, BowmoreSingleMalt, single malt scotch, SingleMaltScotch

White Bowmore Follows Black

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits

We've seen the Black Bowmore, now Scotch distiller Bowmore has launched the second of three limited edition whiskies, the White Bowmore. There are 732 bottles of the White Bowmore, which is a 43-year-old single malt. The whisky has been maturing in six bourbon casks since 1964. It will sell for $4,400 a bottle with just 40 bottles released to the U.S.

John Hansell of the Malt Advocate tried it back in July and rated it a 94 saying that it has notes of "bright fruit: peach, tangerine, mango, ripe melon, and pineapple" as well as softer sweet notes and a balance of smoke and oak.

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Tags: bowmore, scotch, whisky, white bowmore

Black Bowmore 42-Year-Old Scotch Whisky

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits

The Black Bowmore is one of the most expensive whiskies around. The scotch comes from Bowmore, one of Scotland's oldest distilleries on the island of Islay. The spirit was poured into oak casks that had been used for aging Oloroso sherry. This dark whisky has scents of cocoa, toffee, sherry and mature oak with a rich flavor with hints of coffee and orange.

Back in February, RIck Lyke who writes the great spirits blog Lyke to Drink tasted the 42-year-old Black Bowmore which was distilled on Nov. 5, 1964, The five casks used in this bottling yielded 827 bottles of which 80 were shipped to the U.S. earlier this year. The bottle comes in a mahogany box inlaid with maple burl and copper and sells for $4500.

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Tags: bowmore, scotch, spirits, whisky

Does Carbon Dating Resolve the Question of the World's Oldest Whisky

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits

The Islay Weblog has another update on the question of the age of the "1851 Mutter Bowmore," the whisky bottle that fetched $59,200 in September. The actual age of the bottle has been questioned with a variety of people pointing out that the bottle and the label seem to indicate that the bottle might be younger than the date given. Iain Russell, the archivist at the Scottish Brewing Archive based at Glasgow University, has pointed out anomalies that would date the bottle in the 1890s.

Now whisky consultant Martin Green responds that the carbon dating results show that the spirit was produced between 1808 and 1854, so that the auction description of the bottle as being circa 1850 was accurate. Iain Russell told the local paper that the radio carbon date must indeed be the oldest known to be in existence, but the bottle in which the whisky is held, and the label on that bottle, date from much later than 1851. This doesn't jibe with the story that the Mutter family has told saying that this bottle was given to their ancestor William Mutter in 1851. The mystery continues.

UDPATE: Iain Russell weighs in below in the comments section clarifying his words to the Ileach paper. This story just gets more interesting!

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Tags: bowmore, islay, mutters, scotch, whisky

Record-Setting Whisky Not So Old After All?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits

I found this fascinating post on the Islay Weblog which indicates that the world record-setting bottle of old Bowmore which sold for $59,200 in September just might not be as old as was originally thought. The bottle of single malt is the oldest Bowmore known to be in existence was said to have have been bottled on Islay around 1850 but research by a variety of people including Iain Russell, the archivist at the Scottish Brewing Archive based at Glasgow University, adds an interesting level of speculation to this auction. Russell is among those who have pointed out anomalies that would date the bottle in the 1890s. The evidence includes the fact that the bottle is claimed to be handblown but looks to be machine made, that is is unlikely that a Scotch of that age would be bottled in clear glass, that the level of liquid appears to be remarkably high and that it is unlikely that a whisky bottled in that time period would have such an ornate four-color label.

Who knows where this controversy will go but if the bottle does date back to the 1890s rather than the 1850s that would have a huge effect on the value of the bottle and the bottle would likely be worth less than the price paid for it at auction. The bottle's provenance rests squarely on the history of the Mutter family who said the bottle was given to their ancestor William Mutter in 1851.

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Tags: auction, bowmore, whisky

A New Whisky Record

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Spirits, Auctions

The bottle shown at right just sold for $59,200 at auction. The bottle contains Bowmore single malt that was bottled in 1850. It was sold at McTear's auction house in Scotland on Friday for what is said to be a new world record for Scotch at auction (a businessman paid over $58,000 for a bottle of the Dalmore 62 back in 2005). The bottle exceeded estimates even beating out the Bowmore brand who had bid on the lot but lost out to an anonymous telephone bidder. All this, even though as you can see in the picture, the cork is falling into the bottle. The bottle was presented to William Mutter, one of the founders of the distillery, in 1851 and had remained in the family ever since.

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Tags: auction, bowmore, scotch, single malt, whisky