With its classic whitewashed buildings and black trimmed windows, Bowmore distillery settles expansively along the shore of Loch Indaal, its pagoda-topped chimneys rising grandly above the Town's High Street. While its frontage is unmistakably Islay, with one seashore warehouse emblazoned "BOWMORE" in large bold letters, its malts have a fine character all their own.

It is the oldest licensed distillery on Islay, founded in 1779 by farmer David Simpson, and one of the first to offer its product widely as a single malt whisky. In the 1880s and 1890s Bowmore Islay whisky was sold throughout Brittain, Ireland and Canada. The focal point of the town is a round church at the top of the hill, with no corners in which the devil could hide. This is certainly a distillery rich in legends - indeed, its most popular single malt is named Bowmore Legend.

  The management flirted briefly with stainless steel washbacks in the 1980s, but reverted to traditional wooden washbacks and floor maltings in the 1990s. Some of the barley is still malted by hand on a traditional malting floor and partially dried over a peat fire, the peat being first crumbled to generate more smoke. Bowmore is only medium peated, however, with about half the phenols of its neighbours round the coast at Lagavulin, Laphroaig and Ardbeg, and as such it is not typically Islay.

  Its water is drawn from the river Laggan and it operates a copper-domed mash tun, 4 Oregon pine washbacks and 4 pot stills. The whisky is matured in Spanish and American oak casks, some stored in the famous Bowmore vaults below sea level, and about a third are prepared with oloroso sherry. The warm water from the condensers is used to heat a swimming pool in a former warehouse, converted by the distillery for the use of the residents.

  Bowmore distillery has an excellent visitor centre offering an audio-visual presentation, tours and tastings. The visitor centre and a well-stocked shop are open all year.

 (source: "Whisky Classified" by David Wishart © 2002)

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 All these pictures were taken by myself in JULY 2004. © Hans Sommer.