Many consider Black Bowmore to be one of the most iconic Scotch whiskies ever produced. The first edition was released in 1993 and marked the launch of a series whose final edition would not be come until some 20 years later.
Bowmore in the 1960s
The 1960s was a golden decade for Bowmore. In 1963, the distillery was bought by Stanley P. Morrison, a brokerage founded by Stanley Morrison on Renfield Street in Glasgow in 1935. After several major campaigns in the 1950s and the early 1960s, the business took on a whole new dimension with its £117,000 purchase of Bowmore, which marked its entry into the worlds of distilling, blending and bottling. Other acquisitions followed, notably Glen Garioch in 1970 and Auchentoshan in 1984. Bowmore, however, remained the key jewel in the group’s portfolio and it even changed its name to Morrison Bowmore Distillers in 1987. Two years later, Suntory bought a 35% stake in the group, before ultimately buying the entire business in 1994.
The Bowmores distilled in the 1960s have an enviable reputation among enthusiasts and are revered for their notes of exotic fruits, delivered by the brewer’s yeasts used at the time. The following decades saw a clear change in the distillery’s style, particularly in the 1980s, which was a period often criticized for the pronounced notes of violet found in its malts. The 1960s, therefore, remain a key period for the brand, and not just in the public’s mind, with the distillery also seeming keen to recreate the traits of the era in its current production. Many of its most highly prized bottlings were distilled during this time. They include the Bowmore 1966 Bouquet from Samaroli, the 1969 Single Casks from Edoardo Giaccone, the Bowmore 1964 Bicentenary, the Bowmore 1967 Largiemeanoch and of course the Black Bowmores.
The first Black Bowmores
The 1990s marked the end of the Whisky Loch crisis—a period of disastrous overproduction in the 1980s that led to the closure and mothballing of a great many of Scotland’s distilleries. At the time, whisky was still available at very affordable prices, often released at venerable ages after being left to slumber untouched during the years of low demand in warehouses like Bowmore’s No. 1 Vaults, a building located below the level of Loch Indaal that enjoys its own cold and humid micro-climate ideal for long maturations. The whiskies stored there have a very low angel’s share of around just 1% per year. Those aged in sherry casks were particularly popular and peated malts were gradually winning a growing number of hearts.
The very first Black Bowmore—a very old, lightly peated malt matured in sherry casks in the famous No. 1 Vaults—combined all these elements. It was released in 1993 for around £80 - £110 per bottle, a high price at the time, but nonetheless saw its first limited edition of 2,000 bottles go out of stock in just a few weeks. This led to the release of a second edition in 1994 and a third edition the following year, with 2,000 and 1,812 bottles available respectively. These second and third editions went for slightly higher prices (£90 and £100 - £150) but still remained accessible. The three bottlings formed a trilogy, with the packaging for the third edition even claiming to be the Final Edition. The future would decide otherwise.
2007, and the series returns
12 years passed between the release of the third and fourth edition. The new retail price for the latter was a clear illustration of the market’s development—some would say its premiumization—coming in at £2,400 and reflecting not only the rising value of whisky in general but also the success of the first editions which had since become collectors’ items. Indeed, for many enthusiasts, they were something of a Holy Grail, a whisky that had to be tasted at least once in a lifetime. While the 1970s and 1980s were characterized by iconic bottlings from the great Italian bottlers (Giaccone, Samaroli, Intertrade, Moon Import, Sestante, etc.), Black Bowmore was a leading figure of the 1990s, at a time when the Italian market’s prestige was in decline and Japanese whisky was still undiscovered in Europe.
This latest edition was soon followed by two others, the Bowmore 43 Year Old 1964 White and the Bowmore 44 Year Old 1964 Gold, released in 2008 and 2009. Bowmore White was blended from six bourbon casks and Bowmore Gold from three bourbon casks and one Oloroso casks. Together these three bottlings formed a new trilogy that allowed enthusiasts to compare whiskies of similar ages and the same vintage matured in different cask types. A similar trilogy had also been released a few years previously based on the same principle but without the use of colour as a distinguishing mark. It featured three Bowmore distilled in 1964 and matured in bourbon casks, Fino casks and Oloroso casks from the same batch as the Black Bowmores.
The series ended in 2016 with a Bowmore 50 Year Old, released in a limited edition of just 159 bottles for the mind-blowing sum of £16,0000 each—200 times the price of the first edition’s original price. Once again, Black Bowmore acted as a gauge for the market. While the packaging for Black Bowmore was already impressive, this latest version took things even further, with a new modern bottle design mouth-blown at Glasstorm, a Tain-based glassmaker in the north of Scotland. It was presented in a box made from Scottish oak from John Galvin Design, a Glasgow-based cabinet-maker, with silver rings representing the five editions of Black Bowmore. It is a blend of the two final Oloroso hogsheads seemingly forgotten in No.1 Vaults and only rediscovered in 2014... The launch of the final edition also marked the retirement of Eddie MacAffer, Bowmore’s master distiller, who had been with the distillery since 1966.
Conclusion
In two decades, some whiskies have become collectors’ items and investments that only a happy few are able to buy and taste. This move towards greater luxury, notably initiated by the first trilogy, culminated in the final, more limited, more expensive edition with a truly premium presentation box and finely tuned backstory. In the meantime, the price of the early editions has gone through the roof, reaching around £15,000 for the first version at the time of writing. It was a bet that paid off, then, and likely far more than could ever have been imagined for the first three.
The series
Bowmore 29 Year Old 1964 Black First Edition
50%, 70 cl, 1993, 2,000 bottles
Bowmore 30 Year Old 1964 Black Second Edition
50%, 70 cl, 1994, 2,000 bottles
Bowmore 1964 Black Final Edition
49%, 70 cl, 1995, 1,812 bottles
Bowmore 42 Year Old 1964 Black
40.5%, 70 cl, 2007, 827 bottles
Bowmore 43 Year Old 1964 White
42.8%, 70 cl, 2008, 732 bottles
Bowmore 44 Year Old 1964 Gold
42.4%, 70 cl, 2009, 701 bottles
Bowmore 50 Year Old 1964 Black The Last Cask
41%, 70 cl, 2016, 159 bottles
Tasting
Bowmore 43 Year Old 1964 White
42.8%, 70 cl, 2008, 732 bottles
The nose opens with aromas of exotic fruits (mango, passion fruit, kiwi) and white florals (lilac, magnolia). Although the peat is very discreet, marine notes (oyster, kombu seaweed) betray the malt’s island origins. The palate is not without a light bitterness that is nonetheless very pleasing and brings to mind citrus fruits like lime and grapefruit. A hint of wood and beautiful spices (cardamom, nutmeg, caraway) give an extra lift. Without sacrificing the exoticism so characteristic of 1960s Bowmores, this White version manages to take a little distance from it and offer the taster a deeply complex experience that is a little less opulent than usual.
Bowmore 30 Year Old 1964 Black Second Edition
50%, 70 cl, 1994, 2,000 bottles
This second edition in the legendary Black Bowmore series opens with an incorrigible richness defined by an array of jams (red fruits, plum, cherry and more), fruit pastes (orange, quince) and dried fruits (fig, date). The fairly subtle peat delves into our memories, with notes of smoke and meat (bacon), and a medicinal dimension. The palate develops a resolutely tertiary register, revealing nuts (walnut, roasted hazelnuts), coffee liqueur and pepper. While not the masterpiece of finesse and balance claimed by some, this is nonetheless a whisky with a stunning consistency and perhaps even a joyful radicalism.
