Islay in the Southern Hebrides of Scotland is justly famous for its whisky. Could we visit all 8 distilleries in a week?
You don’t have to spend long on Islay to see why it became such a renowned whisky making island, the receipe having been bought over by Irish monks in the 1400’s. Water: lots of it due to the prevailing winds and the heavy rainfall. Peat: the whole of the island is virtually one big bog so a plentiful supply for drying the malt over peat fires to give Islay whisky its most notable flavour. Bere barley, grown as a sustenance crop, but with an excess available for whisky. The distance away from the tax man probably helped too: though an Excise Act was passed in 1644, the first exciseman didn’t reach Islay until 1797 showing an understandable reluctance to take on such wild barbarous people!
After various ups and downs over the years, Islay’s whisky business is now thriving. There are 8 (actually soon to be 9 when Ardnahoe on the Bunnahabhain road opens), largely owned by big international companies who have the money to invest. Where once all the production went into blends, now high class malt whiskies are the norm. All the distilleries offer a variety of tours.
The thing that really hits you is the smell, the realisation that whisky starts life as a living entity. Peer into one of the huge wooden wash tubs at Ardbeg and you are seeing yeast in living roiling action, bubbling away furiously as whisky starts its long journey from its 3 ingredients of grist, water and yeast to its final days in a bottle.
Near the end of the tour in the cask filling area the smell is that of whisky, fragrant on the air. 20% is lost from the casks in evaporation over the 10 years of maturation and our guide makes the point that this empty area is then filled with air – this distillery ís one of few to store its casks on site. 200 metres away the sea tosses on a grey windy day – but the air is fresh, salty and çlean. Can casks stored in Glasgow be as pure as Ardbeg? It is an interesting point.
Ardbeg also prides itself on adding no colour to its whiskies but although they can look rather pale, they certainly pack a punch when it comes to flavour. There is a core range of four whiskies, the most popular being the Ten, a ten year old single malt.
Named after local landmarks from the spicy Corryvrecken (a whirlpool near Jura) to Uigeadail, the loch or ‘dark mysterious place’ where the water comes from, these whiskies encapsulate the pure traditional essence of Islay. Each year they have a special festival release and these are much sought after. This year an Asian man was very disappointed to find that the limit was one bottle per customer: he had wanted to buy all five hundred plus!
Officially dating back to 1815 when it was first discovered by the tax man, the highly awarded Ardbeg is now owned by Louis Vuitton. With only one still producing 1.4 million litres a year, it is a small distillery with a big footprint. The old pagoda roofs of the bright white and green malting rooms house a smart cafe and the tasting takes place in a jolly little hut.
Future expansion is on the cards: visit now for a flavour of the original Ardbeg.
The end of the road where a warm welcome and some unusual Islay whiskies await. It is worth it just for the roller coaster ride with distant views to Mull and the rounded wild hills of Jura. Just north of the distillery a rough track leads away to the Rhuvaal lighthouse near the northern tip of Islay: this would be a fabulous walk on a good day and apparently the coves to the north have a large otter population: a nature programme was recently filmed here.
Despite being the only person on the 10 am tour David took great care taking me around and provided a comprehensive and informative tour of the workings of the distillery. It dates back to 1881 when it was built at ‘the mouth of the (Margadale) river’ with good boat access and plentiful rock for building – the road was not put in until 1960.
Their original production went into blended whiskies including the famous Cutty Sark, so when they developed the single malt side fairly recently they continued to produce unpeated whiskies, making them the exception for Islay. These are matured on site in sherry casks which gives the final whiskey a more rounded sweeter finish with fruity undertones.
Recently there has been a move towards producing a peaty malt and this has been well received. The place itself, whilst enjoying a fabulous location, has a rather austere grey Colditz appearance, right down to the severe stone entrance gates (though I was there on a horrible day). However, one does get the feeling that it is a fully functional no frills distillery with no concessions to tourism and I think it is all the better for it.
There is certainly plenty of money in the whisky business and this is reflected in the the fact that most of these distilleries are owned by huge international brands. Caol Ila is no exception, being owned by Diageo and producing about 40 % of Islay’s whiskey production, or somè three million litres a year.
Located quite close to Port Askaig, its stills enjoy a splendid sea view over ‘Caol Ila’ – the Sound of Islay – with Jura just across the water. It is a modern distillery and sister ship to Lagavulin: I found it lacked the character of some of the older distilleries though an even newer version is in the pipeline.
If you are whiskied out by this stage – and I was getting close – it is possible to have a combined whisky/chocolate tasting which actually works better than one would think. Their whiskies are considered about half way along the Islay Richter scale and connoisseurs reckon they can taste the seaweed and salty air in them.
Apparently duty paid on bottling is just over £27 per litre and nearly all of Caol Ila is used in the Johnnie Walker blend; the malts they do have on sale in the distillery are at the high end. Today Islay pays one million pounds a day to Westminster – no wonder inland revenue came calling in 1815.
The smart turquoise livery mirrors the sea in this unique distillery. State of the art when built in 1881, it was mothballed when purchased in 2000 by the far sighted vintner Mark Reynier whose company paid 5 million pounds for the stock and 2 million for the buildings.
He felt that terroir should apply as much to whiskey as to wine and set about sourcing the ingredients on Islay. Locally grown barley was malted at Port Ellen producing the first pure Islay whiskey since World War One.
I really liked these whiskies finding them smooth and very drinkable across the entire range. If you bought a bottle of the pure Islay unpeated malt and a bottle of the Islay peated malt, you would have two very nice drops.
Reynier made whiskey like wine and was not afraid to experiment with ingredients and aging methods. One unpeated malt is made with Bere barley, an old variety which dates back to Norse times and is now grown mostly on the Orkneys. He also produced Octomore, the world’s ‘peatiest whiskey’ which is aged for as little as 5 years, it’s full flavour proving that age isn’t everything. Some can be traced to a single Islay field and their sleek black bottles have become iconic despite a hefty £125 + price tag – ask nicely and they will give you a taste.
Islay Botanist gin started in 2010 but sadly a year later Reynier was outvoted when Remy Cointreau offered £58 million to buy out the company. Luckily they have carried on his ethos and Bruichladdich continues to be the most ‘progressive’ distillery in the Hebrides.
The tour is great value at only £5 (refundable on purchase) with generous tastings afterwards; much of the original 1881 equipment is still used, including an unusual open cast iron mash tub and beautiful long necked copper stills.
I even enjoyed their gin, made from local plants and beautifully packaged. The labels are embedded with seeds: if you put them in the ground they will grow so you can really transport a little bit of Islay home with you.
You cannot find an Islay distillery too far from the sea and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset as we exited from a tasting session in their elegant tasting room.
This one wins the prize for the best museum with beautifully laid out displays and a great lounge with squishy sofas and sea views. Best of all though is the Friends of Laphroaig scheme whereby they give you a square foot of land to call your own with rent of a miniature a year. Wellies and flags are supplied and with GPS coordinates you can find your plot in the bog across the road from the distillery entrance: a unique and amusing diversion.
The origin of this lies in an historic dispute over the distillery’s water source: though settled now, Laphroaig are hedging their bets and with 900,000 friends and counting, any future land grab is going to face a lot of owners!
They are also one of the few distilleries where you can see barley being malted in the traditional manner, with large floors where it is spread out to germinate before being dried over a peat fire.
As to the whiskies, I am not a great fan. The tasting has a bottle of TCP on the table as a comparison and I find them far too medicinal – so much so that they even escaped prohibition in USA.
Today they are owned by Beam Sun Tory, a Japanese company: perhaps a whisky/sushi pairing is in order?
I had booked the Warehouse Tour for this distillery and upon turning up at 10.30 am had expected a tour before a tasting. However, we launched straight into cask sampling, led by the famous master whisky maker Iain MacArthur who has been with the company for 47 years.
One advantage to visiting the distilleries in November is that very few people are, so only one other person was present and we virtually had a private tasting.
This proved to be great fun: a selection of 5 whiskies were drawn directly from the casks into a valinche then into a jug, then into our eagerly awaiting glasses. We started with a five year old whiskey and progressed up to the 25 year old: as some of these can be as high as 57° alcohol in the cask, it is not surprising that the Canadian girl present weaved her way towards Ardbeg! She was following the Three Distilleries Pathway, a relatively new 5.5 km path or cycleway that runs from Port Ellen to the Ardbeg distillery, via Laphroaig and Lagavulin.
Iain proved a genial host with a dry sense of humour and I think we might have been a little unsteady as we left too. These are my husband’s favourite whiskies, with lots of smokey peat and a warm rounded finish.
Finally to answer the question: no, we we didn’t fit in all 8 distilleries! Bowmore in the eponymous town and little Kilchoman were a glass too far. It is said that one should leave life as one leaves the table, only half sated – maybe that applies to whisky distilleries too!
For details on ferries to Islay, see here