Bowmore has revived The Devil's Casks, the sherry-dark limited series it first released between 2013 and 2015, with two new single malts sold exclusively through The Whisky Shop. The 10-year-old went on sale on 16 October 2026 at £70. The 22-year-old, at £380, will be offered by ballot on 31 October, and only to drinkers who bought the younger bottle first.

The name comes from one of Islay's best kept legends. The devil is said to have entered the Round Church in Bowmore village and found no corners in which to hide, the church being round. Chased by the congregation into the distillery, he escaped inside a whisky cask bound for the mainland. It is a good story, and between 2013 and 2015 it carried a trilogy of small-batch releases that showed a darker and richer side of Bowmore, built on sherry casks and the distillery's signature smoke.

The new 10-year-old is a deliberate homage to those originals. It is matured in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks and finished in first-fill Pedro Ximénez casks, bottled at 56.6 percent ABV, and presented, according to The Whisky Shop, at cask strength without artificial colour or chill filtration. The brand's notes promise layers of dark fruit and fruitcake, wrapped in cocoa and maple syrup, with a thread of smoke running through it. Those are the maker's notes, not ours; the shape they describe, though, is the original Devil's Casks shape, with the sweet weight of PX set against Bowmore's coastal peat. The Whisky Shop's own notes for the bottle go further, finding dark fruits and moist fruitcake on the nose with warming leather, ripe apples, maple syrup and peat, then fruitcake, treacle toffee and dark chocolate on the palate with soft smoke, tobacco and bittersweet angelica root, closing on lingering dark fruit, baking spice and a gentle kiss of smoke. Two sets of notes, one shape: this is Bowmore with the sherry turned up and the smoke turned down to a thread.

The 22-year-old is the rarer proposition, and the more interesting one. It was crafted, in Suntory Global Spirits' words, using two remaining casks held back from the original releases and matured for a further decade. The full maturation runs to 22 years in first-fill Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez sherry casks, with a final finish in refill Oloroso. It is bottled at cask strength, 59.6 percent ABV. The brand's notes cite charred fruit and treacle giving way to savoury notes of salty oak and liquorice.

Dr Calum Fraser, master blender for Scotch and Irish at Suntory Global Spirits, framed the revival as a return to character rather than a reissue. “The Devil’s Casks became one of Bowmore’s most memorable modern limited editions, combining Bowmore folklore with an intensely rich, flavour-led expression of the distillery’s character,” he said. Revisiting the series, he added, gave the team the chance to explore what made the originals distinctive while letting devotees experience them again.

The retail mechanics deserve as much attention as the whisky. The Whisky Shop is the global exclusive partner, online and across its 22 UK stores, and its director John Beard called the revival “a thrill and genuine privilege” and a global exclusive the retailer is proud to bring to customers old and new. The ballot structure, in which buying the £70 bottle is the ticket to enter for the £380 one, is a fairer distribution device than a first-come queue, and it ties the rare bottle to the accessible one instead of letting the two drift into separate markets.

Bowmore carries the heritage to support an archive programme. The distillery was established in 1779 and describes itself as Islay's oldest licensed distillery. Suntory says The Devil's Casks is the start of a longer chapter: over the coming years the distillery will reintroduce celebrated past expressions and reinterpret them through its whisky making today. That is a significant commitment, because archive revivals live or die on whether the new liquid honours the memory drinkers are actually buying.

After The Whisky Shop window, both expressions will also be available at the Bowmore distillery from 1 December 2026, with launches in additional markets following in 2027. For now, the story is a tidy one: a cult series, a sensible price for the entry bottle, a genuinely scarce older sibling made from casks the original trilogy left behind, and a distribution model that rewards the drinker who starts with the 10-year-old. The devil, as ever at Bowmore, is in the casks.