Bowmore Vault Edition First Release Atlantic Sea Salt

Nose: not much actually, little smoke and salt Body: salty, smoky, thick Palate: sea spray, smoke, ash, vegetal, floral and salty Finish: a bit dry, salty, smoke, slightly fishy, very long

There's sea salt on the nose for sure, but also grilled lemons and perhaps kelp. A drop of water brings out a puff of minty smoke. Lemon and pears on the palate and a tangy, creamy smoke. Long salty finish. Quite delicious, I much prefer this to the sweeter core range.

Rather dissapointing. A little bit muted, light, spicy, and very light smokyness. Still a decent whisky, but nothing mind blowing

One of the funniest recurring motifs in The Fantastic Mr. Fox is how characters keep referring to the main character's son Ash as a little "different" (with a signature hand gesture, to boot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uaClHZVvD0). This Sea Salt special release of Bowmore is definitely *waves hands around* different. It's not bad-different, exactly, and not amazing-different, just . . . different. Salt wasn't the dominant theme to my palate. Instead, this one tasted young, medicinal, and herbal, with heavy doses of acidic citrus and a slight drying effect that left me with a puckering sensation. That astringency may read as salt to some. This is a dram that doesn't taste like anything else I've encountered in Bowmore's lineup, and reminds me more of peated Bunnahabhain or some of the oddities that one would find from Bruichladdich. To the extent the goal was to create something entirely novel out of Bowmore's distillate, they accomplished that goal. Now the only question is whether people really want to pay $125+ for it.