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SMWS Islay Festival 2022 Fruity Time Travel

2022 Festival Casks Release | 57% ABV

Just another guy jumping on the Bowmore bandwagon

There’s this little distillery on an island somewhere off the Scottish west coast that makes whisky.

It’s fine, you probably haven’t heard of them, it’s not like they’ve done much worth reading about *cough-blackbowmore-cough*. But that’s what makes Dramface the cutting edge news and review site it is. We bring you the niche so you can discover something cool or avoid the ordinary.

I’ve finally succumbed to a hype release. I usually distance myself from these kinds of things on a number of principles such as extortionate pricing, limited allocations that spike anxiety and feed the woefully unhealthy flipper’s market and unrealistic expectations that put too much pressure on the liquid. 

There are a few exceptions, mostly from Campbeltown, but I exclude these from the list (and please have mercy for me saying this) since I’ve been a fan since before the hype. Plus being in the industry affords me some level of extra value and access. Feel free to cuss and curse, it’s only fair. Anyway, with this bottling’s extra marketing pageantry and flair from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, it could seem an unlikely purchase.

To be fair, this was not bought sight unseen, especially not at the fairly eye-watering asking price here in Australia. The SMWS put on a local Festival Casks tasting night, and while only one of the drams that night was sub-par (a distillery 93, which was weirdly butyric and generally unbalanced) this was far and away the show stopper. This was a genuine surprise given the majority of my experiences with Bowmore have been official bottles which I am decidedly uninterested in. Even the 18 year old in the core line up seems quite insipid, which stings all the more now seeing what an indie bottler can do with the same juice at essentially the same age.

While Bowmore have released a few cool bottlings such as the Tempest/Dorus Mor and Devil’s Cask, most have just had too much character stripped, diluted and finished away to be worth much of my time. But a vatting of second-fill bourbon casks with a 17yo age statement at batch cask strength? Let’s dig in.


Review

SMWS Festival Casks Bowmore 17yo, 2022 release, vatting of second-fill bourbon hogsheads, 57% ABV
AUD$340 sold out

Bowmore is a touch odd in the greater scheme of Islay distilleries. To the best of my knowledge, unlike every other Islay distillery, they have no regular production programme for heavily peated whisky - even Bunnahabhain has their Staoisha and Moine releases. The peated malt is a combination of their own floor maltings and mainland peated barley from Simpsons at Berwick-upon-Tweed. The ratio between the two changes every year, but it hovers around 30-40% floor malted barley. This is a curious detail, since every other Islay whisky to the best of my knowledge uses smoked malt sourcing peat from either Islay or the mainland, but not both at the same time. It may however explain the balance of salty, coastal and medicinal qualities with the earthy and wood-smoke notes I frequently encounter in many Bowmores. In any case, the malt from both sources is specified at between 25-30ppm, which approaches a heavy peating level.

As another point of curiosity, for the last four years (so obviously not affecting this release then) they’re running two different fermentation times. A shorter run for half the week at around 60 hours and a longer fermentation for the other half at around 90 hours. 

*Science alert, feel free to skip*

As I touched on in the Signatory Ledaig review, the length of fermentation impacts the ability for lactobacillus cultures to bloom, which impacts fatty acid production (particularly acetic and lactic). The production of short chain fatty and other organic acids in the presence of an alcohol rich environment gives the potential for diverse ethyl ester formation during fermentation, distillation and maturation. It‘s also worth noting that extended fermentation times give increased potential for fusel alcohol synthesis by yeast(s) via the Ehrlich pathway, thus creating the potential for a wider variety of higher alcohol esters, particularly acetates. While there seems to be little data for the fermentation lengths in decades past at Bowmore, one might assume they weren’t short.

There are other factors in wash production that change the product and profile of fermentation and wash respectively. Subtle differences like the temperature and length of enzyme rests in mashing, pH ranges, water hardness profile, what proportion of milled grain is flour vs grist vs husk, clarity of wort and even the physical dimensions of fermentation vessels.

*More science*

An enzyme rest is the time held at a particular temperature while mashing. Certain malted barley derived enzymes perform optimally at certain temperatures and pH ranges, but will also begin to denature once above certain temperature optimisation thresholds for certain times. Alpha amylase has an optimisation range between about 63⁰C-70⁰C and pH of 5.3-5.7, while Beta amylase has a range between 55⁰C-65⁰C and pH 5.1-5.3. Alpha amylase also requires calcium ions as a co-factor, so its performance is enhanced based on water composition. Limit dextrinase has temperature optimisation range from 60⁰C-63⁰C and pH 5.4-5.5 and is structurally stabilised (harder to denature) in the presence of calcium ions. The performance of these enzymes decides the sugar composition of the wort; mono, di, tri, and higher polysaccharides as well as residual dextrins and potentially even starches. This composition will also be directed somewhat by the ratio of flour to grist to husks. While more flour means a thicker mash which affects lautering, flour has higher surface area which increases the amount of dissolved starch for enzymes to act on. Similarly, clarity of wort is important to this balance- a turbid wort will contain more residual starches and grain material than a wort which has been recirculated through the grain bed (to vorlauf) to clarify it.

This may all seem down the rabbit hole, but since brewing and distilling yeasts generally only metabolise up to trisaccharides, the residual carbohydrates as a percentage dictate how much “Fuel” is left after primary fermentation for bacterial colonies and wild yeasts like brettanomyces and schizosaccharomyces to metabolise, since they are capable of synthesising their own enzymes to break down larger carbohydrates. These wild yeasts and bacteria contribute their own range of congeners to the wash.

Lastly, the dimensions of fermenters have a subtle but important impact; as well as their thermodynamic  rate of heat dissipation (thereby impacting fermentation temperatures) the amount of hydrostatic pressure from vertical depth of liquid impacts the metabolic performance of yeasts. Yeasts produce higher ester levels in wide, flat fermenters with low pressure, whereas tall and narrow fermenters with higher pressure inhibit ester production. 

Distillation is a fairly slow and careful affair; the heads cut to the hearts after about 36 minutes, followed by roughly two hours and 45 minutes to run the hearts before cutting to the tails. This is a pretty extended hearts run whereby the distillation is deliberately slowed to increase reflux and tune in a higher degree of fractionation.

*Seriously, more science?!*

While the net product of distillation is a reduction in the total amount of esters and an increase in the total amount of fatty acids, the combination of heat, high alcohol(s) environment and copper is the perfect cocktail for transesterification by a version of the Fischer-Speier mechanism reliant on copper as a catalyst. This is the process whereby esters are hydrolyzed into their corresponding fatty acids and alcohols and then re-esterify in different arrangements. For example; isoamyl butyrate (sweet, pear aroma) and ethyl acetate (pear, nail polish remover, acetone aromas) could theoretically transesterify into ethyl butyrate (pineapple, tropical aroma) and isoamyl acetate (banana aroma).

The hearts’ starting cut is made at approximately 74% ABV and then allowed to run until about 61%, giving a total hearts strength of around 69%. This is a moderately wide pair of cuts typical of Islay distilleries which generally run further into the tails than many unpeated malts. This is done so as to gather more of the molecularly dense phenols which require higher temperatures to volatilise and travel over the still’s neck, and hence occurs later during distillation. 

For reference, most of the information above has been sourced from a 2019 interview by the One Nation Under Whisky podcast (S3 Ep9) with Bowmore distillery manager David Turner. It’s Turner's opinion that over time, particularly in the mid-teenage through to early 20s, Bowmore distillate becomes increasingly tropical in profile. 

*Last science I promise* 

An explanation for this is that degradation of oak components by pyrolysis, thermal decomposition in toasting and ethanolysis can result in acetic acid production. Also, oxidation of ethanol provides acetaldehyde, and oxidation of acetaldehyde produces acetic acid. Acetic acid can then readily esterify with ethanol to produce ethyl acetate. The ethyl acetate is then free to transesterify over long periods of time with other alcohols, fatty acids and esters.

Nose

A surprising level of peat for a late teen Bowmore. Plenty of sea air, ash, touches of white pepper, a gentle mossiness, softly carbonising bread crust, mild TCP and medical embrocations a la tiger balm and herbal ointments, which is to say terpenic and mentholated. Otherwise there’s a lovely crisp malt tone before great fruitiness, particularly pineapple and lychee with some mango/passion fruit/grapefruit thioesters plus various other aromatic tropical varieties. A bit like fume blanc meets Gewurztraminer. The oak sits softly in the background with just enough vanilla and coconut sweetness to modify the spirit’s dynamics.

Palate

Juicy, salty/coastal, malty, softly present oak and just enough peat to thread it all together as an Islay powerhouse. The tropical fruits appear bigger than the nose initially, then the sea brine and herbal, burnt and ashy peat combine with gentle TCP medicinal tones, plus minor fatty and umami touches. More grapefruit than passionfruit here, plus some lime juice. The citrus element gives a great leanness to the experience. Nice menthols that call back to the tiger balm. The oak has mostly been subtractive and interactive, but with enough lactones and vanillin to give an appropriate sense of maturity.

The Dregs

Adding water is completely optional here - the dram is potent but balanced at cask strength with no one element dominating the experience. It’s a dynamic whisky that evolves through its facets between nosing and sipping, and then again through dilution in the mouth. The finish and retronasal morph through pretty well the whole tapestry.

If you add water, the tropical fruits and medical tinctures amp up on the nose (Passiona soft drink and pineapple/mango juice anyone?) while the palate demonstrates even more of the phenolic and terpenic goodness with lifted ashy, peppery and herbal peat. There’re even fleeting interplays of those tropical esters, some new rubber, hard plastics, olive oil and sea brine that harkens to Jamaican rum. Personally I slightly prefer a little reduction (only a few ml, probably a 1:10 dilution) but really both are marvellous prospects. My only advice in either instance is to really hone in on the finish and retronasal - so many nuances and details flit past that might not be caught but for a wary palate. 

Ultimately based purely on organoleptics, this release pushes a solid 9 in my books. The only detractor I can really level is price and availability, both of which make this a pretty daunting purchase. I would strongly recommend trying before buying to check that the composition suits your palate, but again due to availability that’s much easier said than done. Make no mistake though, this is a barnstormer worth seeking out.

Score: 8/10

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. TK

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