Black Bowmore DB5 1964 pays tribute to the Aston Martin that James Bond made famous.
Aston Martin and Bowmore are two brands that go together incredibly well — and yet simultaneously don’t. Both are British icons of class and substance, creators of quality goods that are designed to bring pleasure, which would seem to make them great bedfellows; then again, unlike lemon and lime or peanut butter and chocolate, cars and alcohol are two great tastes that notoriously don’t taste great together.
That said, with the obvious caveat of don’t drink and drive, Bowmore and Aston Martin’s new collaboration — the Black Bowmore DB5 1964 scotch whisky — seems like a delightful idea. Even if we’ll never likely try it, for reasons that will shortly become clear.
As the name probably lead you to suspect, the new scotch is inspired by the Aston Martin DB5 — the car James Bond made famous in films like Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Skyfall. Sadly, the bottle lacks any Q Branch gadgets, but it is made using a genuine piston sourced from a DB5’s straight-six. (The rest of the bottle is made by a bespoke glass studio in Scotland, with each one taking a full week to complete.)
The Aston Martin DB5, seen here speeding towards its local liquor store to buy a bottle of scotch.
Aston Martin
It’s the ambrosia inside that’s the marquee attraction, of course, and Bowmore grabbed some of the best from their vault to fill that fancy bottle. Black Bowmore, as it’s known, was first distilled in 1964 — the same year the still-new DB5 leapt to fame in Goldfinger — and has only been bottled six times in the distillery’s history, with only six thousand bottles of it released into the wild since 1993.
The 31-year-old scotch is aged in sherry butt casks, and is rated at 100 proof (with an alcohol content of 49.6 percent). According to the brand, those lucky enough to sip Black Bowmore can expect to smell “layers of ripe exotic fruits and creme caramel” upon first whiff, followed by “soft tobacco smoke, aromatic orange peel and rich black cherry.” Take a sip, and you’ll first be greeted by “intense flavours of mango, passion fruit and acacia honey interwoven with a powerful combination of coffee and tobacco smoke,” with “a wonderfully long and decadent finish with tropical fruits and spice” wrapping things up.
We say “those lucky enough” for two reasons: one, only 25 bottles will be released to the public; two, each of those bottles will carry a list price of £50,000, or about $65,655 at current exchange rates.
To be fair, that also includes a lovely calfskin presentation box that boasts nickel plating and custom brass latches and hinges. Then again, for that much money, you could buy an actual Aston Martin.
Keyword: Aston Martin and Bowmore Are Teaming Up to Make Whisky, But You'll Never Try It