Bowmore - Vaults Secrets Tour

Wednesday, April 10:30 am. Not the usual time to be enjoying a dram (maybe it is for some folk) but here I am sitting sipping a Bowmore Vault First Edition in the distillery bar overlooking Loch Indaal. This is the the Bomore Vaults Secrets tour and already the signs are it's going to be good. It started when the Father in Law and I were called by our guide, Kim, for the tour to find we were the only two on it. A private tour round Islay's oldest distillery? Sign me up!

The tour started with us being issued our own Bowmore branded lanyards and Perfect Dram glasses (always a good sign of the amount of whisky you can expect on a tour when you get a lanyard) which were promptly filled with a good measure of Vault First Edition. A nice wee opener and a welcome reward after the grueling 500ft or so walk in the sunshine from our accomodation to the distillery.

After the drams, Kim took us from the bar to the Malt Barns which are situated over three levels in a building to the side of the visitors centre.

The barley here is soaked with water from the river Laggan for 27 hours then spread out on the floors and left to germinate for 6 - 7 days.

Around about 30% of the malted barley Bowmore use in production comes from these floors, the rest is sourced from external suppliers. 

After a wee play with the malt shovels and turners it was time to climb the stairs to the top floor to look at the kiln where the now green malt is dried with Peat smoke. 

The barley is around a foot deep here with peat smoke from the kilns below drying the barley for 18 hours. Then the for thr next 42 hours, hot air is used. The smell of this place is absolutely fantastic! Interestingly the hot air is then recycled and used to heat the local swimming pool next door.

On the way back down we noticed they have a fake owl up in the rafters to scare birds away who manage to get in for a free meal. It didn't seem to be working very well..

The next part of the tour was to take a look at the furnaces. Bowmore use smaller cuts of peat compared to other distilleries on the island to smoke their peat. I can't exactly remember why but it was something to do with reducing the volume of peat they use whilst still getting the same effects. What struck me was that the furnaces were not that hot. 60c is the hottest the kiln gets.

We actually got to behind the furnace into the chimney area where the smoke rises up to the kiln. This was a first for any tour I have been on. As the place was so dark and smoky, Kim told us to make sure if we had a torch on our phone's to turn it on  The picture below doesn't really show much, but it gives an idea of how dark it was.

From the kilns it was a quick trip outside to see where Bowmore's water source, the River Laggan, enters the site through a man made lade which travels 7 miles from the source to the distillery.

It was then back inide to check out the Porteous mill which has been used at Bowmore since the 1960s. It gets serviced every year by one guy (Ronnie I think?) who is the only person who services these things across all the distilleries.

Next, on to The Mash House and the two massive copper kettels they use to heat the water to fill the Mash Tun.

Then the Tun Room with its 6 Oregan Pine Washbacks. Of course we tried the wort and both agreed it was one of the better ones we've had.

A nice touch was that each washback was named after a previous distillery owner.

From the Tun Room it was then onto The Stillhouse. Bowmore use two wash and two spirit stills. The spirit stills use condensors to cool the raw spirit vapour into liquid before entering The Spirit Safe. Due to space constraints, one of the condensors is inside The Stillhouse, whilst the other is outside. 

We had a good chat with one of the stillmen here who was very happy he was sheduled for nightshift the week of Feis Ile which was in a couple of months!

After The Still House (or maybe it was before, I can't remember) we visitied the Kaboodle. A wee office type shack containing some lab equipment where the new make spirit is evaluated and of which we got to taste some too. All very interesting, but the main event was coming up next.

A walk down towards the shoreline brought us to the entrance of the legendary (for whisky geeks at least) No1 Vaults. 

After using what seemed like five diferent keys to open the doors, Kim eventually let us in and we had a good snoop around.

There were a few unique cask types in here...

Apparantly these virgin oak casks contained spirit produced using barley entirely malted on the floor maltings at Bowmore. Earmarked for a future Feis Ile release or other limited edition no doubt.

I brought along a couple of challange coins too

It was soon time for the best part of the tour, the tasting. Kim showed us the two single casks we would be sampling and then bottling a 100mL measure of our favorite to take home.

Two casks from 1999. A Heaven Hill Bourbon barrel and an Oloroso cask.

Both were fantastic drams! After much deliberation and a few research drams of both, we each picked the bourbon cask. Strange, as I was sure I would go for the sherry but the bourbon was really unique in terms of the various Bowmore releases I have tried before.

Things start to get a bit hazy after the warehouse but after we had finished bottling up our samples it was back up to the visitor centre bar for two more special drams.

First up was the distillery exclusive Managers Selection. A 1997 sherry matured expression which Kim told use was meant to be very similar to Bowmore Black. Simply stunning and something i could never aford a bottle of.

The second dram was the 27 year old Vintner's Trilogy bottling matured in a Port Cask. This was another excellent whisky. Very fruity and light compared to the thick, heavy Distillery Managers Selection

And with that we were done. 3 hours flew by. Obviously we stopped of in the shop and purchased a few items on the way out.

Overall an excellent tour, maybe the best I have been on, and one we both would repeat when back on Islay.



Though who cares what I think. The expert's thoughts are below:

Gus's Distillery Visit Review

Dogs allowed in the visitor centre and bar. First class toilet facilities round the back of No1 Vaults - 5/5