Head to head · same category, comparable price
Bowmore 12 Year Old vs Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years
Bowmore 12 Year Old is the cheaper bottle and the dearer whisky: £136 a litre of pure alcohol against £131. That inversion is the whole of this comparison.
Compiled by WhiskeyCask Editorial · Last verified 2026-07-30
Specifications side by side
| Bowmore 12 Year Old | Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Single malt | Single malt |
| Origin | Islay, Scotland | Islay, Scotland |
| Age | 12 years | 10 years |
| Strength | 40% ABV | 50% ABV |
| Cask | American oak ex-bourbon cask, European oak Oloroso sherry cask | First-fill and refill ex-bourbon American oak, ex-wine casks |
| Bottle | 700 ml | 700 ml |
| RRP observed | £38 | £46 |
| Per 10cl | £5.43 | £6.57 |
| Per litre of alcohol | £136 | £131 |
| Chill-filtered | Not stated | No |
What separates them
Both Islay whiskies, from different distilleries.
Bowmore 12 Year Old states 12 years, 2 more on paper.
Cask as each producer describes it: Bowmore 12 Year Old in american oak ex-bourbon cask and european oak oloroso sherry cask, Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years in first-fill and refill ex-bourbon american oak and ex-wine casks.
Chill filtration: Bowmore 12 Year Old does not say, Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years is not.
Colour: Bowmore 12 Year Old silent, Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years natural colour.
Bowmore 12 Year Old: specifications not yet producer-confirmed.
What the price buys
Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years is £8.00 dearer a bottle than Bowmore 12 Year Old.
Strength reverses that: Bowmore 12 Year Old is £136 a litre of pure alcohol against £131.
Across the 32 bottles we can cost this way, Bowmore 12 Year Old is 16th cheapest and Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years 14th cheapest.
Flavour, compared
View as table
| Axis | Bowmore 12 Year Old | Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years |
|---|---|---|
| Peaty | 6 | 2 |
| Sweet | 6 | 6 |
| Fruity | 5 | 7 |
| Spicy | 4 | 5 |
| Woody | 5 | 5 |
| Sherried | 5 | 3 |
| Cereal | 5 | 6 |
| Oily | 6 | 7 |
Furthest apart on peaty, 6 against 2. 1 of the eight axes clears 3 points: peaty.
Identical on sweet and woody.
Each bottle in its own right
Bowmore 12 Year Old
Sea salt, lemon and gentle smoke over sherried fruit. The most balanced entry-level Islay.
Bowmore is precise about wood and silent on strength — its page specifies hand-selected ex-bourbon and Oloroso casks while stating no ABV anywhere. Not to be confused with the separate Bowmore 12 Sherry Oak Cask SKU.
Full record →Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years
Barley sugar, sea air and citrus at a proper 50%. Unpeated Islay, which surprises people.
Now carries a 10-year age statement — it was NAS 'Scottish Barley' for years and most sites still publish it that way. Every bottle prints a recipe code that unlocks the exact cask-by-cask recipe and barley origin for that batch, batch disclosure no other major Scotch brand offers. Bottled at 50% rather than the usual 40-46%, which the producer states explicitly.
Full record →No overlap in what we list them for: Bowmore 12 Year Old for peat curious and all-rounder, Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years for value at 50%, transparency and unpeated islay.
Where these specifications come from
Producer and retailer pages for Bowmore 12 Year Old and Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years: bowmore.com, bruichladdich.com. Figures are what those pages published when we last checked them, on 2026-07-30.