After Laphroaig, Bowmore was the Islay distillery I most wanted to visit. The distillery evokes a love-hate response from most whisky geeks and I’m one of those who is in the love camp, most of the time. (What can I say? I’m all about love and positivity.) And more than any distillery tour I’d wanted to do the Craftsman Tour at Bowmore, a 4 hour extravaganza that leads you through the entire process of whisky making and ends with a tasting session inside their legendary No. 1 vaults. Alas, I left making a reservation too late and they were full up the entire time that we were on Islay. On the plus side, it’s because of this that I ended up doing the Warehouse Experience at Lagavulin, and if you’ve read my report you know how happy I am to have done that. At Bowmore I contented myself with just the basic 1 hour distillery tour. I can tell you that this is a pretty good tour—probably better than the tour portion of the Laphroaig Distillers’ Wares experience and about 500 times better than the perfunctory tour at Talisker. This post, however, does not describe that tour—that’s coming on Friday. This post merely presents a look at the distillery grounds and the shop and visitor centre. I have too many pictures, you see, and can’t be arsed to crop and resize them all at once.

How many times do you have to come to Islay before signs like this stop giving you a little thrill?

Eagle-eyed readers will notice right away from the pictures that I went to Bowmore twice. Once on a grey day, once on a day with much brighter skies: it rained on both days. The first visit was actually a laundry run at the MacTaggart Leisure Centre right by the distillery—we had five days worth of laundry to do and the Leisure Centre had enough to keep the boys occupied while our clothes were washed and dried. To occupy myself I wandered over to the distillery, braving the incessant pissy drizzle, and wandered the visitor centre for a bit. Two days later I came back for the tour, which began with bright, blue skies, and ended with more pissy drizzle and grey skies. In either circumstance, it’s a distillery with a dramatic setting (right on the water) and a nice, welcoming feel. There’s a bit of a disconnect between the feel of the distillery proper and the feel of the visitor centre (more on this in the captions below) but it’s a nice place to visit even if you’re not doing a tour.

Come back on Friday if you’re interested in reading about the tour. In the meantime, maybe take a look at some of the pictures below.

Like Oban, Bowmore is situated right in the middle of the town that gives it its name.

This was not open, and I’m not entirely sure if it’s still in operation–a distillery cafe?

Yes, this is a gate. Though you can see cars inside, visitors can’t park in there. It’s not hard to find parking on the adjoining streets, however.

In grey weather

In better weather.

This statue of a mermaid who is obviously feeling the cold weather is off to the side.

17 yrs old and from Bordeaux casks for £125: I passed.

Almost bought this though.

But was not tempted by this.

You go up a few steps from the shop to the visitor centre proper where there’s a mini-exhibit on the distillery’s history, a bar and a lounge, all overlooking Loch Indaal.

There’re a lot of impressive whisky bottles here but I was most taken by this replica of an old map of Islay (from 1773).

I believe the other bottles were sold for charity and that the contents are basically oak extract.

Bottled for the visitor centre’s opening in 1974. Wonder what it looked like then.

I’ve been lucky enough to try that one on top: it’s very good.

Though cut off at the top, this describes a cask filled for the Queen’s visit in 1980 and bottled for her golden jubilee in 2002.

One of two bottles presented to the distillery.

The lounge part of the visitor centre is attractive enough but feels a bit like it was designed by someone whose specialty is corporate lounges.

This is where the tastings at the end of the basic tour happen.

And it was nice to go out on the balcony and drink some Bowmore while looking at Loch Indaal (not as nice to be rained on after 45 seconds).

That was our guide two days later.

You sign a book saying where you’re from and they stick pins into a world map. More people seem to have visited them from Minnesota than from India.

Okay, that’s it for now. Come back on Friday for the distillery tour; and come back tomorrow if you’re interested in more food reports from Skye.