Bowmore 22yo Single French Wine Barrique, Cask#2304, vintage 1999.

I have arrived to Bowmore Distillery. After being a whisky nerd for years, i have always believed that this is the most collectible single malts there are in Islay, but it was never my favorite. I never hated it, i just wasn't impressed with a lot of their offerings (some other ones were quite spectacular though). Well, this distillery experience has changed my life forever. I now call myself "A Bowmore Soldier". The distillery tour, premises and warehouse is just out of this planet. Nothing compares to Bowmore, not even my favorites: Lagavulin or Glendronach. They let you go in INSIDE THE KILN. You read that right, they have a back door where you go in and you become a peaty entity. Then they let you turn the barley in the malted floor, and they let you go in the room where the barley is been burn with peat smoke. The warehouse is incredible, and they let you draw from two different 22yo casks, and you try them, then you pick one for your own hand filled bottle. Then they give you two more samples of very hard, limited Bowmores in the Bar. THAT IS A PROPER CUSTOMER SERVICE. (And the round church is just up the hill, the one that gave birth to the devil's casks legend). Having said all that, one of the drams we tasted in the actual warehouse, was this 22yo French Wine Barrique matured single cask distiller's edition, cask number 2304, vintage 1999, bottled at 47.2%abv. On the nose, it is fairly good. Bananas, vanilla ice cream, thick caramel and floral. Very elegant. It is like a banana split with a slight citrus touch. Creamy. Dim very dim ashes. Orange ice cream, very aromatic. Prunes. On the palate, a little straightforward but also nice. Red wine, Citric orange peel. Elegant in mouth as well. Aftertaste was perfect. Sawdust in a fancy way, Ashy and very salty. Red wine mixed with mineral saltiness. Great stuff. Overall, this grew with every sip. The nose was good, the palate nice and aftertaste was explosively amazing. The whole experience should award more points to this, but in order to be objective, my score for this marvelous dram is 93 over 100.