Dreaming-of-Islay
Bowmore Vault Edition First Release Atlantic Sea Salt
Single Malt — Islay, Scotland
Reviewed
March 9, 2020 (edited April 13, 2022)
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.
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The answer to your question is definitely "no", unless I see a lot of reviews that differ markedly from yours. I love a great sea salt note, so Bowmore's branding team got my interest. But an astringency masquerading as a salt note is not something I'm anxious to pay $$$$$ for.