Category: Islay

#54 Another whisky year under our belt

What a 2024 it was!

 

TL; DR: The recap of our whisky year: 33 distillery visits, 28 visited for the first time, and 9 not in Scotland (a record for us?)! Also, 5 festivals attended (3 as volunteers), and 1 non-whisky focused. But more importantly, a lot of drams with a lot of friends, who really made our year special! 

Another year about to end, we hope you are enjoying these last few very mild days (at least, mild in the Central Belt) of the year with some good drams, possibly in a cozy room, by a nice wood fire. For us it’s like that, minus the wood fire.

These quieter days come with some reflections and thoughts, as is usual for this period. Nowadays we give for granted these recurring events like New year, but it being established on January 1st has more to do with cultural traditions coming from ancient Rome, rather than astronomical events. This said, the fewer hours of light (particularly at higher latitudes like in Scotland) bring some natural peace and tranquillity, helped by things slowing down due to most people being on holiday.

  • Inevitably, we fell in love with this place – Raasay.

This year has been another good one: we visited over 30 distilleries, most of them for the first time. We started with a bang during our usual trip around February, this year on Skye and Raasay. The latter in particular was quite spectacular – the 3-hour tour at the distillery and at the warehouse was great, but it was also amazing to drive around this pearl of an island, definitely one of the best we visited so far. That weekend also marked our appearance in Roy’s Aqvavitae vPub, as Italian guests in a 6-Nation themed blind tasting (which we both horribly failed). We had so much fun, it was one of the whisky highlights of the year!

A few weeks later, we visited Aberargie distillery, in Fife, thanks to an event organised by the Fife Whisky Festival crew. The distillery, which hasn’t released any single malt yet, is run by the Morrison Distillers Company, who also own very tasty brands like the sherried blended malts Old Perth, the Islay single malts Mac-Talla, and Carn Mor range (usually single casks or small batches). The Mac-Talla Mara (cask strength edition) was Teresa’s whisky of the year.

  • Mr Vantastic and Teresa at Aberargie Distillery!

The next appointment was, for the second year in a row, the Spirit of Speyside Festival. This festival is great because it includes visits to some distilleries that are usually closed to public – this year we visited Auchroisk, Tormore, Craighellachie, and Kininvie (where we met our friend Paul, who used to work at Linkwood and other Diageo distilleries). We also attended the Whisky Fair, a mini-festival at the Mortlach Memorial Hall in the familiar Dufftown, and a very fun and nerdy Start Wars themed tasting at Glen Moray!

  • We fell in love with this place too – Tormore.

In the summer we managed to visit Islay twice, first with our pal Justine and Gianluigi’s brother Edoardo, and then with our pals Clay and Glaire. Between the two visits, we managed to finish visiting all distilleries on the island, including Jura (another awesome location we’d like to go back to) and the newly reopened Port Ellen, during one of their monthly open days (spoiler, you don’t get any dram, but the visit is free). After the first trip, we also somehow managed to sneak in a visit to Campbeltown, for a cheeky Cadenhead’s Warehouse tasting…What else?

  • Happy, wee whisky group.

During the nice season we also visited a handful of distilleries around the Central Belt, including the newly reopened Rosebank, Crafty in Galloway and Glengoyne (Teresa had never visited production before) in the southern Highlands, almost all single-day trips. Edoardo was back in October to run the Dramathon, and in that weekend we visited production at Glenlivet, and had a tasting at Glenallachie, with our friend Sue pouring some super tasty drams!

Our yearly trip with our pals from the Edinburgh Whisky Group was in…England! Yorkshire precisely, where we visited three distilleries, two breweries, and a tasting room in Scarabourgh (The Distiller’s Lounge, also likely harbouring the most complete English whisky collection). Our longest holiday was in Australia, where we visited five distilleries and three wineries. We won’t talk much about these trips here as we still have to write the blog posts, but we were surprised by the quality of some of the whiskies we tried, particularly in Australia, but mostly by the incredible hospitality. In Yorkshire, all the distilleries offered in-depth tastings for (relatively) cheap, and they went above and beyond to accommodate our 15-people group. Similarly, in Australia some of the visits were arranged at the very last minute, but still, everyone was happy to show us around and was very welcoming. In our opinion, that’s something that the Scottish whisky tourism in general needs to learn, or maybe re-learn? In the past, with the EWG we struggled to find activities, we almost needed to beg for a chance to spend our money in some distilleries. Both in Yorkshire and Australia, things were so effortless that it left us wondering if Scotland is resting on its laurels.

  • Dramming south of the border – Yorkshire.
  • Dramming further south of the border – Australia.

A good opportunity to meet nice whisky people are whisky festivals, in particular the small ones! The year started with Funky Booze, organised in January by our pal Francesco, right here in town: small sized, very focused on Edinburgh companies, with a funk band playing in the background. It was very fun, with a younger and more diverse crowd compared to most festivals. March was the month of the unmissable Fife Whisky Festival, third time in a row for us volunteering there. The team behind this festival organised another event in October, for the first time with a different name and location: the Borderlands Whisky Festival, in Lockerbie. In August we attended the Whisky Fringe for the third time as well, almost in Leith, and earlier in the year (March) the same company organised the Drinkmonger Spirits Festival, in the same location: it was fun to try different spirits for once, we were impressed with some of the rums and Mezcals.

  • Working hard at the Fife Whisky Festival.

It was a very busy year also for tastings. Edinburgh’s offer is huge, with many tastings representing a great value for money. Mark’s Jolly Toper tastings, now happening at different locations and no longer at Kilderkin, are a good example. The Belfry pub is also hosting many tastings, for example the ones of the newly formed Edinburgh Drammer’s Club (IG profile here), a new whisky club inspired by the Glasgow Whisky Club. Gianluigi attended the initial meeting, but other commitments got on the way…Let’s see if we manage next year. Other great tastings were the Springbank Society new releases early in the year, Rob’s (aka Quasidrams and Marshall Spirits) Adelphi tasting at the World’s End, and Murray’s (aka One Malt at a Time) Springbank, again at the Belfry.

  • Trying to come up with decent tasting notes.

We’re looking forward to next year: no detailed plans for now, but we’ll definitely go back to the Fife Whisky Festival and, depending on the events, we’ll likely attend the Spirit of Speyside again. On our wish list there are the northern Highlands, particularly the area around Wick and Thurso, and the Outer Hebrides, which would be quite exciting (they look quite spectacular, not just because of whisky, of course). But mostly, we’re looking forward to having drams with the new people we’re going to meet, as well as with our many pals around Scotland: that is what really makes whisky a great experience!

So, until the next year, slainte mhath!

#48.2 Islagain

In the Jack Russell’s den: Ardbeg

 

TL; DR: Among the Islay distilleries, we left a good one for last: Ardbeg! Together with our pals, we went there for a tour and a snack: we were not disappointed, the tour was good, and very relaxed. We even got a special gift! 

(missed Part 1?)

After our Saturday celebrations, we had an “early” start on Sunday: we had booked a distillery tour at 10.30, and we had a 40-min drive from Bowmore to get there. It was a sunny day, so during our drive we enjoyed a great view of the island’s landmarks: peat bogs, the Laggan Bay, the Oa, Port Ellen maltings and village, the Kildalton coast…Our destination? Ardbeg! We arrived a few minutes early, just enough to browse the shop and take pictures in front of the distillery to mark an achievement: our 10th on Islay, the 90th Scottish one, 109 in total.

As we’re not that seasoned in our whisky journey, we haven’t experienced legendary Ardbeg drams like the Uigedail’s first batch (although, the current one is still pretty delicious) or the original 17yr old (we’re not very excited about the clumsy attempt at reviving it, as it’s silly expensive). However, in our early whisky days, Ardbeg 10 was one of the first serious drams we tried, and still a safe bet nowadays: there might be some batch variation, but in general it’s pretty solid. When we started exploring the range, we found other excellent expressions as well: Uigedail as we said, Corryvreckan and the more recent For Discussion are great, while An Oa and Wee Bestie are fine. While we don’t mind too much the silly marketing, we are a bit put off by the high prices of limited releases. But we reckon, if they sell, good for them: we’re happy to stick we the solid core range.

  • 10th Islay distillery, yay!

Back to present, our tour guide was Becca, who took us to the pier and gave us a dram while explaining the history of the distillery: of course it was their flagship, Ardbeg 10 (bottled at 46%, matured in first fill and refill ex-bourbon casks). The distillery was founded by the MacDougall’s family in 1815, and saw some ups and downs, it was even closed for some periods. In recent times, after the LVMH/Glenmorangie acquisition (for £5.5m), they had to release younger whisky because of the lack of stock of the 10yr old. They used to have two malting floors, dismissed in 1981, which are now used as visitor centre, restaurant and warehouse.

Once inside the distillery, we first got into the mill room, where the Bobby mill is still going strong (btw, it’s one of the 17 currently working Bobby mills in Scotland, including Ardnahoe and Bruichladdich). The grist split is the usual, and once milled the barley is moved into the mashtun, where 18,000 litres of water at 65°C are added for the mashing.

  • One of the 17th Bobby mills in Scotland.

Their water source is the Loch Uigedail, located 3 miles away, which then goes into the Charlie’s dam, at the distillery. The second water (8,000 litres at 80-85°C) is then added to complete the mash, while 18,000 litres of the third water (90-95°C) are used as first water for the following mash. They used to do 22 mashes per week, now they cut back to 16. For fermentation, they have 12 washbacks, six original made of Oregon pine (Douglas Fir), plus the new ones. At this point in the tour, Becca gave us the second dram, a glass of Uigedail. Fermentation lasts 66 hours and, once fully fermented, the wash is split in two to fill up the two new wash stills for the first distillation.

We visited both the new and the old still room, the latter being quite tight and very traditional, with the two dismissed stills: apparently one reached its end of life as the new stillroom was built. There, Becca explained us the role of peat and she gifted us a small block! Teresa was not so keen, but Gianluigi was: now it’s on display in our kitchen! We moved on to the new stillroom and its two pairs of new shiny stills, shaped exactly like the old ones. It’s a very modern build, where everything is computerised, including a huge window that was open to get some fresh air. During the second distillation, the newmake spirit is collected after 10 minutes of foreshots, from an abv of 74%, for five hours down to 69%: the rest (feints) is put together with the foreshots and redistilled with the next batch of low wines from the first distillation. Here, Becca gave us the third dram, a Corryvreckan. The tour ended at the pier again, where everyone could finish their dram at their leisure…Except Gianluigi, who went back to the visitor centre to collect his driver drams pack (in a tube, quite distinctively). Other than the glass, they also gave us a five-pound voucher each to be used for merchandising or on the core-range bottlings (min £40).

  • The new still room…That’s big!

After the tour, we had a snack: unfortunately the restaurant was closed for a private event, but we could get some tasty food at the cart in the courtyard, and the weather (although windy) was good enough to eat outside. We then drove back to Bowmore, where we dropped our friends at their accommodation.

  • Such a lovely day.

Our intention was to go for a walk, but as it was starting to rain, we jumped back in the van instead and we visited a bit of Islay we hadn’t been before: the Rhinns. We drove to Portnahaven, where we had some seafood at the An Tigh Seinnse, a local pub. It was truly delicious, and we left the village very happy, also because we spotted seals in the bay. Overall, another good day on Islay.

The day after we just had a walk and a coffee in Bowmore, before driving first to Bunnahabhain (Gianluigi had to catch up the tour he’d missed on the Saturday) and then to Port Askaig for our ferry back to the mainland.

  • Seals spotting in Portnahaven.

Another nice wee holiday on Islay. While Bunnahabhain unfortunately dropped the ball, Ardbeg was great, with a very good tour that could fit both newbies and more seasoned whisky geeks (just a shame we didn’t get to see the warehouses). In our experience so far, we think Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Bowmore, Bruichladdich and Lagavulin offer the best “regular” distillery tours on the island (full disclosure: we haven’t done the regular tour at Kilchoman).

If we combine the two previous trips on Islay, overall we managed to “bag” nine distilleries, out of the ten currently working distilleries on the Island (plus Jura!), and we got to 10 with Ardbeg on this trip. As we are writing this post, we heard the news that the construction company building the 11th one, Portintruan, filed for administration, and we are wondering if this is going to delay the project. Finally, there is a 12th distillery in the pipeline: Laggan Bay, a collaboration between the Islay Boys and Ian McLeods (Glengoyne, Tamdhu and now Rosebank), but as far as we know works haven’t started yet. So, probably for a while we’ll be able to claim that we have visited all distilleries on Islay. Yay!

Stay tuned for some Lowland action! Until then, slainte!

Ardbeg Quintessential Tour

Price: £20.00 pp (August 2024)

Duration: 1hr 15min

Tasting: 3 drams, Ardbeg 10 (46% ex-bourbon casks), Uigedail (54.2%, ex-bourbon and Oloroso casks), Corryvreckan (57.1%, ex-bourbon and French oak)

Target: both casual and more seasoned drinkers

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the new still room

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.ardbeg.com/en-int/visitus.html

#48.1 Islagain






Nice drams with a sour aftertaste: Bunnahabhain

 

TL; DR: And we’re back to Islay for the second time this summer! After a quiet Friday afternoon, the next morning we had our first tasting, followed by a tour at one of our favourite distilleries: Bunnahabhain. The tasting was great as usual, but what happened afterwards was a major let down for us. 

Driving to Islay is always a big trip: it takes about four hours to drive from Leith to the Kennacraig ferry terminal, and then the ferry trip is another couple of hours. However, once you’re on the island, you forget about all of this as the atmosphere in which you’re immersed is something else. Everything slows down and there is a sense of quiet and tranquillity. It’s a strange mix between feeling energised and relaxed, with the mind finally off the million thoughts of everyday life. Maybe this a feature of all remote places.

The excuse for this trip came when our friends Glaire and Clay asked us to join them on their trip to celebrate their friend’s birthday. That was a proposition too good to be true, so we happily accepted. On a Friday morning, we picked them up and started driving westward, first to Glasgow and then up along Loch Lomond, past Arrochar south-west, and along the Argyll’s lochs (as we write, we can almost visualise the trip). We had a wee stop for a coffee (well, and a wee) in Inveraray, at the George Hotel. We also enjoyed their morning rolls, unbelievably tasty. A pity we didn’t manage to meet our friend Ivan. The rest of the drive was uneventful, everything was on time, and we got safely to Bowmore where our friends had booked a small apartment. We parked our van not too far away and hanged out with them. In the evening, after dinner at the Lochside, we met their friends for a drink at the Duffie’s, just next door. It was a nice evening but we were very tired, so after a while we just went back to sleep.

  • A stroll in Bowmore.

The day after we were very excited: our first time back to Bunnahabhain, after our visit in spring 2022. Bunna is one of our favourite whiskies, and it rarely disappoints us: we both love the unpeated sherried stuff, and the peated one too (it’s actually one of the best peated malts in our opinion). So, the jolly party of three (Glaire skipped this one) left Bowmore on Mr Vantastic, and after a quick stop to check out the Ardnahoe shop, we got to our destination. The day was cloudy, a tad windy but not enough to keep the midges away, which in the minute we spent outside the visitor centre destroyed us!

  • Paps of Jura, we’ll see you another time.

Once safely inside, we met the guide for the tasting: Matthew, which after a brief introduction walked us to Warehouse 9, the former malting floor. We were 5 people in total, so quite an intimate tour – the first time it was 13 people and felt like a crowd in comparison. The tasting was fun, as usual, Matthew was a good entertainer and very knowledgeable, and let people draw the whisky from the cask (Gianluigi tried too).

  • Mastering (?) the valinch.

The first dram was an unpeated one, a 2007 ex-Muscat cask (16y), bottled at 53.7%. A very sweet and delicious dram. It was followed by a 2014 (9y) ex-Canasta sherry cask: this is a brand of cream sherry, which is a mix of Oloroso and PX. This dram was bottled at 58.4%, stronger at the palate as well. We moved on to the peated drams, first a 2011 vintage fully matured in a refill ex-Cognac cask (58.9%); the cask was used for a finish first, so the Cognac influence wasn’t too strong. It was followed by a 2013 (10y) ex-Bordeaux red wine cask (57.9%), re-casked into this only after two years, in 2015. The last one was truly stunning, a real dirty belter of a dram.

  • Two friends pretending not to enjoy the moment.

However, here is where things went wrong. Back at the visitor centre, we were told that we could participate in the tour because we’d drunk before at the tasting, and they could allow inebriated people in production. While we could see where this rule comes from (after all, we both did the 2-hour Scottish Training for Alcohol Retailers and Servers training, so we can see the logic), we really didn’t expect this to happen: it wasn’t written anywhere and in other distilleries (including Deanston, of the same company) we’d visited production after a tasting. There, they mentioned the T&C, which is always an “out-of-jail” card, but later that day we verified and that was not true (at the time, more on this later). We asked if we could have a refund, and here is the annoying part: they told us they couldn’t issue any! Thus, to avoid losing £40 we decided for Teresa to go on the tour on her own (she was the driver that day, so she’d not drunk at the tasting), while Gianluigi would come back on the Monday to catch up, just before the ferry back to the mainland. The following tour description is a summary of both our tours, which were given by the same guide. They were probably in training, as both tours only covered the basics, but as we said in other occasions, you need to start somewhere.

  • The old visitor centre.

The distillery, whose name means the Mouth of the River, was founded in 1881, originally doing peated malt, but turned to unpeated later: nowadays they do both. Their flagship malt, the Bunnahabhain 12, was first released in 1979, almost a hundred years after founding. What is really hard to wrap our head around, is that until the 60s there was no road to the distillery, so everything that went there and back was by boat, quite incredible! They have one of the iconic Porteus mills since 1964, which grinds the barley usually sourced from Simpson, on the mainland. In the resulting grist, the husk/grit/flour split is 20/70/10, as usual. It is then sent to a big mashtun (full leuter and covered by a copper lid), 8.6 tonnes at the time, where it is mashed with the usual three waters at increasing temperatures, to maximise the sugar extraction in their cloudy wort. The draff, discard from mashing, is used for their biomass plant, as opposed to many distilleries that sell or give it to farmers to feed cows.

  • The mashtun is bigger than it looks.

Currently, they do 23 mashes per week, which are then moved to ferment into one of the six Oregon pine washbacks for 52 hours to reach about 8%abv. They have only one pair of stills, and during the second distillation they take a cut from 74% to 64%, discarding and redistilling the head (above the first cut point) and the tails (after the second one). After a quick nip to the warehouse and a look at the pier, we walked back to the visitor centre for the two-dram tasting. Surprisingly, there wasn’t their flagship 12-year old, but a dram each of the two non-age statement expressions: Stiuireadair (unpeated), and Toiteach A Dhà (peated). Meh.

  • An old fashioned still room.
  • Teresa unable to take a selfie with the still room in the background…
  • …while Gianluigi doing a better job.

A bit deflated, we left the distillery and drove back to Bowmore, where we had a quick meal before driving to the birthday party. There, we met some very nice people and had lot of fun, playing garden games and having delicious food. In the evening, we had a final couple of drams at our friends’ flat, before retiring in the campervan.

Honestly, this was one of the most disappointing distillery visits we had recently, which made us sad as Bunnahabhain is one of our favourite whiskies. We excused the increase in £10 for the Warehouse 9 tasting compared to 2022, although for four drams it is has became quite steep. Someone could argue that they are expensive drams, they are indeed, but the reason is that they are almost insanely priced: the 20cl bottle of the whiskies we tried ranged between £45 and £60, which is £145 to £195 for a full 70cl bottle, out of touch. Also, the choice to replace the Bunnahabhain 12 with the Stiuireadair (maybe the only bad Bunna we ever tried) in the tasting after the tour is quite a strange and cheap move. Would you imagine going to Lagavulin/Caol Ila/Ardbeg/Bruichladdich, paying for the basic tour and not getting a dram of their flagship 16/12/10/Classic Laddie? Yep, not even the Evil Empire does that.

  • Back to a calmer atmosphere in Bowmore.

But of course, what we really did not like was the way we were treated, and the lack of flexibility or willingness to try to fix a problem that wasn’t our fault in the first place. It’s true the staff gave Gianluigi and Clay “reparation” drams while Teresa was doing the tour, but at the same time we felt we were treated like we had done something wrong, which wasn’t true at all. At that time, it wasn’t written anywhere that we couldn’t do the tour after the warehouse tasting. Fortunately they recently changed the website (we wonder whether it wasn’t just us having this problem). Since the reservations were made under the same name/email, it would have costed the staff 5 minutes to touch base via email before. But what really made them unprofessional was that someone could have just told us before the tasting, when we checked in (and said we’d booked both tasting and tour). We would have both got drivers drams. We later complained via email, and they promised a refund for the tours (refund still not received, at the time of writing over a month later).

To wrap up this rant: will we still drink Bunnahabhain? Definitely, it’s too delicious to let go. Will we still buy from the distillery? Maybe, there are many indies out there with great Bunnas. Will we go back for another tasting or visit? Probably not for a very long time.

Stay tuned for some happier action the next day, a visit to the only Islay distillery we hadn’t visited yet…Can you guess which one? Until then, slainte!

Bunnahabhain Warehouse Tour

Price: £50.00 pp (August 2024)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: 4 drams (25ml, all natural colour and unchillfiltered), 2007, 16y, ex-Muscat cask, 53.7% (70/20cl bottles for £195/£60); 2014, 9y, ex-Canasta sherry cask, 58.4% (£145/£45); 2011 Moine (peated) fully matured in a refill ex-Cognac cask, 58.9% (£155/£55); 2013, 10y, Moine ex-Bordeaux red wine cask, 57.9% (£145/£50), and a copita to take home

Distillery Exclusive: see above

Target: whisky nerds

Value for money: a tad pricey

Highlights: Warehouse 9 is always special

Recommended: yes

Link: https://bunnahabhain.com/

Bunnahabhain Production Tour

Price: £20.00 pp (August 2024)

Duration: 1hr (almost)

Tasting: 2 drams (20ml), Bunnahabhain Stiuireadair (46.3%), Toiteach A Dhà (46.3%)

Distillery Exclusive: see box above

Target: casual drinkers and tourists

Value for money: ok

Highlights: the still room

Recommended: if you’re looking for a basic distillery tour, there are better options on the island

Link: https://bunnahabhain.com/

#46.5 The return of the smoke

Lagavulin and the rest of Kildalton

 

TL; DR: Final day on the island, it was time to visit the Kildalton coast and its distilleries. First, a tour at Lagavulin, followed by a nice lunch at Ardbeg. We closed the trip on Islay with a dram at Laphroaig, just before taking the ferry at Port Ellen.

(missed Part 4/Part 3/Part 2/Part 1?)

As usual, we woke up very early when the morning light entered Mr Vantastic. We stayed in bed and, somehow, we managed to sleep a bit longer. When we finally woke up, Justine was already up, and offered us some food. Despite being parked on the main road connecting Bowmore to Bridgend, the vehicles noise had not bothered us. We actually felt rested. We took turns to go to the public restrooms at the Bowmore square, and Gianluigi took advantage of his “trip” to stop at the Co-Op for some fruit and croissants.

  • An unexpectedly good spot for the night.

We soon jumped on the van and drove all the way down the island, past Port Ellen, to the Kildalton coast. There, we had our first (and only) tour booked for the day, at the Lagavulin distillery. We had visited it before, but for one of their warehouse tastings, at the time (May 2022) hosted by the legendary Iain McArthur, who recently retired. This time, we were going to visit production, to find out how they make the stuff. Before the tour started, and after Justine’s White Horse miniature photoshoot, we had a coffee at the Malt Mill bar, in the building of the former namesake distillery. This was a “short-lived” (well, still over 50 years!) distillery built by Peter Mackie in 1908, who aimed to replicate Laphroaig after he lost control of it following a court case loss. However, it quite never made it, so in 1962 the distillery was closed. After the coffee Justine said her goodbyes, as she was going to get an earlier ferry.

  • These guys are ready for the tour.

The production tour started in a very cosy room with nice chairs and old memorabilia, which is just along the hall, past the shop and the tasting room. Alice, our guide, started telling us about the history and anecdotes of distilling on Islay: like that the island was the first recorded place of whisky-making in Scotland, and that the first attempt of sending an excise man from the mainland almost resulted in a hanging. Lagavulin officially started distilling in 1816, when John Johnson decided to go legal after he was caught by an excise man. We soon moved to the old kiln, where a dram of Lagavulin 16, their flagship, was waiting for us (and a sample for the driver, Gianluigi today). There, we found out that their maltings closed in 1973. The peat currently used comes from Castle Hill, near the Islay Airport, and the barley is peated to 36 ppm (phenol parts per million), a lower peat level compared to other Islay distilleries, usually around 50-55 ppm. The water source is the same as the nearby Ardbeg, brown because it is “peated”, but then filtered before entering production (and no, despite the urban legends, the peaty water doesn’t give the whisky any additional smokiness).

  • A welcome dram in the old maltings, nice!

They use 24 tons of barley per day, which is first milled in a 1963 Porteus mill (usual split husk/grit/flour of 20/70/10%), before being mashed in a full leuter mashtun. There, the grist is mixed with 19,000 litres of water at 64°C, while the second (and last) water is first sparged and then heated up to 84°C. They currently run 4 mashes per day for 7 days a week, for a total production of 3.5 million litres of pure alcohol. The wash is then transferred in one of the 10 washbacks, 4 made of larch, 6 made of Oregon pine (or Douglas Fir). On one of the washbacks there was an ”intruder”…We couldn’t understand why it was there, but it was funny.

  • A funny guardian of the washback.

Fermentation is short, 55 hours only, and kickstarted with Mauri liquid yeast. At that point, one of the operation managers, Grant, “joined” the tour and contributed to the already quite exhaustive explanations that Alice gave us. They have four stills, two wash and two spirit stills. The cut they take from the second distillation is exceptionally wide, from 75% to 59-60%, taking 10 hours, plus other 5 hours of feints run (which are then mixed in the same tank and redistilled in the next batch of low wines). Together with the first distillation, that takes over 9 hours, Lagavulin features the longest distillation on Islay and one of the longest in Scotland.

  • A welcome addition to the classic selfie.

After a brief stop at the beautiful pier, we went back to the visitor centre for the tasting. The first dram was Lagavulin 8y (48%): as the 16y became more expensive in the last few years, this one became more and more prevalent, now available in supermarkets as well. We had a bottle at Teresa’s mother house, it is a solid dram, matured in ex-bourbon casks from the Bulleit distillery. Next up, the Distillers Edition: like the other ones in this series, it is finished in fortified wine casks, Pedro Ximénex sherry for this one. The Distillers Edition used to have a vintage year, but apparently it’s disappearing: Alice told us this one is around 14 years of age. As predictable, this was a sweet and decadent take on Lagavulin. Finally, a surprise: the Feis Ile 2024 edition. This year they released a heavily peated (55 ppm instead of 35) malt, aged for 10 years in refill bourbon casks: delicious smokiness, a shame it was so expensive (£175). We were also surprised by how they aligned the price of older Lagavulin 12 cask strength editions (2020 and 2021 for sure) to the most recent releases: they were all £150, for some a jump of £20 compared to the RRP at release!

  • Drams in a cosy tasting room.

Overall we really liked the Lagavulin tour, and it confirmed us that it is one of the best distilleries to visit, for sure the best in the Diageo portfolio, at least based on our experience. Alice was knowledgeable, and Grant contribution was the cherry on top: the tour was really informative! They served us four drams, more than most basic tours, although the size was a bit small (around 10-15ml).

After Lagavulin, we drove to Ardbeg for lunch. We had a nice meal and a coffee at the cafè inside the distillery, as the cart in the courtyard was closed. We also got some of their limited releases drams: some very tasty, a pity the bottles were a bit overpriced.

  • Ardbeg…but just for lunch.

Finally, at that point we had to complete the Kildalton distilleries: so we stopped at Laphroaig, not to get the free coffee (although Gianluigi was tempted). As he is in the Friends of Laphroaig club, he could get a free dram, which was extended to Teresa and Edo by the very nice staff (and offered in a sample bottle to Gianluigi). We also bought a tasting pack: 4x15ml samples from batches of Laphroaig 10 cask strength for only £15, a steal! It was a brief stop, and once left, we drove straight to the Port Ellen ferry terminal. The sail was uneventful, we took advantage of the upper lounge to get some rest.

Next up, a last detour before driving home… until then, slainte!

Lagavulin Classic Tour

Price: £22.00 pp (July 2024)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: welcome dram Lagavulin 16 (43%), plus 3 drams, Lagavulin 8 (48%), Distillers Edition (43%, PX cask finish), Feis Ile 2024 (heavily peated, refill ex-bourbon casks, 56.7%)

Distillery Exclusives: Distillery Exclusive (NAS, 53.5%, £110.00)

Target: whisky enthusiasts and casual drinkers

Value for money: good

Highlights: the pier

Recommended: yes, the best Diageo distillery tour so far

Link: https://www.malts.com/en-gb/distilleries/lagavulin

#46.4 The return of the smoke

The gentle side of the smoke: Bowmore

 

TL; DR: We visited a “classic” Islay distillery: Bowmore! Located in the centre of the namesake village, it’s very recognisable with its typical white buildings, directly facing the sea. The tour was extremely interesting, particularly the part around the malting floor, and it ended with two cask samples. What else?

(missed Part 3/Part 2/Part 1?)

Our plan for the day was a good one in principle, and we were looking forward to it: after returning on Islay from Jura, we’d visit Finlaggan (check!) and Caol Ila distillery (check!), then drive to Bowmore for a tour at the local distillery, get a shower at the leisure centre (interesting fact: it is built in a former Bowmore distillery warehouse, and the pool is heated by the distillery), a few drams at the Bowmore Hotel and dinner at Peatzeria.

The tour at Caol Ila went quite long, so we had to drive fast to our next destination. During the tour we got bad news from Justine: the showers in Bowmore’s leisure centre were broken, so no showers for us that day…unless we went for a shower outside (oh well). We knew that it probably meant no shower for the day. We parked the van just outside the village, on the sea front, a very nice spot. As we were late, we had just enough time to warm up some “beefy bake”, a couple of pies and a sausage roll we bought the day before at the shop on Jura. A bit rushed, but not bad (the mince pies were particularly tasty).

  • A bit rushed, but we got there!

The distillery was then 10 minutes away, and it is in front of Bowmore main square. At the check-in, the staff offered to keep Gianluigi’s backpack for the tour (nice of them!), and we had just enough time to peek at the shop: other than the regular expressions (Bowmore 12y, 15y, 18y, decently priced) and some travel retails, the only other expressions on sale were 20+ years old (and very pricey). We didn’t have to wait long though, because our guide Margaret (25 years in the job!) gathered us and the others (mostly a group of American tourists) to start the tour.

In the courtyard, she told us that the distillery is the oldest on Islay (and one of the oldest in Scotland), dating back to 1779. Similarly to Laphroaig (owned by the same company, formerly Beam Suntory, now just Suntory), they kept their malting floor, where they malt enough barley to cover 25% of their yearly 2.15 mlpa (million litres pure alcohol) production. They soak the barley for 26 hours, then they move it to one of the three malting floors with a chariot, 140kg at the time (100 times, for a total of 14 tons), and it stays there for 24 hours, after which they start turning it every 8 hours.

  • Man at work…
  • While the barley is resting.

The whole process takes between 5 and 7 days, depending on the season and the barley (in our understanding, the low carbon one germinates faster). The barley is then dried in the only remaining kiln, including 10 hours with peat smoke, to reach a phenol part per million (ppm) of around 25-30. Thanks to some improvements, they moved from using 15 tons of peat per week to only 3. The kiln is run for a total of 44 hours (including the previously mentioned 10), before the malt is finally milled. To note, all the peat is machine cut and, contrary to other distilleries, they’ve been using it for 40 years. Suntory also started a peat restoration project, to achieve a sustainable peat usage, but this we knew from our first visit to Glen Garioch in October 2021. While she explained the malting process, we followed Margaret in the building, also walking on the spread barley…the other attendants were eager to try a couple of runs with the rake, but we were all set (we remembered how hard it was from our visit at Dunphail).

  • One of the nicest mash rooms we saw.

Each mash comprises 6 tons of sourced malt and 2 tons of their own, and the grist is milled to the usual split 20/70/10% between husk, grit and flour. The malt is then transferred into a semi-leuter mashtun (for over five hours), where three runs of water are added at increasing temperatures to absorb as much sugar as possible, with the third one used as first water in the following mash. Their water source is the same as in the 1800s, although with recent improvements (which we don’t remember, sorry), they reduced consumption by 70%. Fermentation, kickstarted with solid yeast, takes place in one of the 7 washbacks and lasts about 70 hours. Finally, the fermented wash is distilled twice in one of the two pairs of stills, two 30,000-litre wash stills and two ~15,000 spirit stills. The spirit cut from the second distillation is between 74% and 61-60%abv.

  • The “classic” selfie.

After visiting production, we went to the mythical N°1 Vaults, one of the warehouses on site, where we had the first part of the tasting. Other available experiences are the N°1 Vaults warehouse tasting (£65), which doesn’t include a tour, and one that combines the tour and the warehouse tasting (£85), plus a few other very pricey ones. As we walked in, we saw two casks, a 2010 (13y) ex-bourbon barrel (54.3%) and a 2010 (again, 13y) sherry hogshead (53.6%). We had a dram from each, and they were both delicious. We got similar notes in the third dram, their core range 18y, very tasty despite the low abv (43%), which was served in the tasting bar. Nice touch, we could keep one of the two small glencairn glasses they’d given us in the warehouse.

  • Dramming in the N°1 Vaults

Justine joined us at the tasting bar, while we were almost finished with our dram. As we came out, Gianluigi tried to get into the leisure centre, on the fence whether to risk the outside showers…However, the centre was closed, despite being over one hour from the closing time indicated online (5.30pm). So, we decided to go back to the vans to drop some stuff, and then head towards the Bowmore Hotel bar, for a dram or two (it ended being one, prices were a bit high). It was finally time for dinner, which we’d booked at the local pizzeria: the PEATzeria! While the fritto misto we had as a starter was quite tasty, the pizzas were a bit disappointing: the topping choice was clearly aimed to American tourists, and the pizzas were a bit uncooked. Because we were hungry, and well, it was still pizza, we ate without making any fuss, maybe we were just unlucky.

After dinner we moved to the bar next door, the Lochside. Drams were better priced there, so we had a few, including some stunning like the Mac Talla Rum cask 2024 Feis Ile: delicious stuff! But the day had been a long one, so we soon walked back to the vans for the night.

Anyway, the tour at Bowmore was very good, and Margaret was a great host. Even if it’s not the cheaper among the basic tours on the island, because of the drams in the warehouse (plus the 18y), it was definitely worth every cent.

  • A couple of tasty drams…

The only “meh” note was not about the distillery, rather about the facilities on Islay. It is always incredible to realise how little there is and in which conditions (the public toilets in Port Ellen, Bowmore and Jura are quite old), in particular when thinking how much money whisky brings in. Other than the Bowmore leisure centre, the only other available shower was at the Port Charlotte community centre, but only after 2pm. On the contrary, in other trips we found all-day open showers: in Tobermory (Mull) they were open from 9 to 5pm (cash only), but in Carbost, in front of Talisker distillery, the toilets/showers are open 24/7, and you can access after a card payment (and we’ll have an even better story in the coming weeks!). We wonder why facilities like these are not on Islay. 

  • Not a bad day, not a bad day at all…

Stay tuned for our last distillery tour on Islay (for the moment)! Until then, slainte!

Bowmore Distillery Tour (with Cask Exclusive Tasting)

Price: £25.00 pp (July 2024)

Duration: 1hr 15min

Tasting: 3 drams, 2 samples from the cask, 2010 ex-bourbon barrel (54.3%) and 2010 ex-sherry hogshead (53.6%), Bowmore 18y (43%), and a complimentary mini glencairn

Distillery Exclusives: none

Target: whisky curious

Value for money: good

Highlights: the building and the cask samples

Recommended: pricier than other tours, but worth it

Link: https://www.bowmore.com/en

#46.3 The return of the smoke

Islay’s Juggernaut: Caol Ila

 

TL; DR: Back on Islay, we first visited Finlaggan, the site of the castle of the Lords of the Isles, in the middle of a loch: a charming place. We then drove to Caol Ila distillery for the first visit of the day. It’s the biggest on Islay, recently renovated, definitely worth visiting on a good day for the view from the tasting room.

(missed Part 2/Part 1?)

We rarely sleep past 8am in the campervan, but this was one of the rare occasions. A combination of cozy and nice temperature, and not too much light (also thanks to a truck protecting us from direct sunlight!). We felt well rested, and after a nip at the loos (public toilets were just on the other side of the very narrow street), we had breakfast. There wasn’t enough time to do anything else, so we jumped in the vans and managed to take the first available Caolin Ferry back to Islay.

Caol Ila distillery is very close to the Port Askaig pier, and we had over an hour before the tour. Instead of hanging around, together with Justine we decided to visit Finlaggan, less than 10 minutes up the road towards Bowmore, with the last bit on a single-track road.

  • Where the Lords of the Isles used to rule…Finlaggan

This is the historic seat of the Lords of the Isles, the ancient rulers of the area, before it was absorbed by the Scottish crown. It’s in the middle of Loch Finlaggan, just a few minutes walking from the visitor centre (still closed when we arrived). There used to be a castle/fortified house there, built over different centuries, but the ruins we can see today are from the 13th century. It’s a very beautiful and quiet place, definitely worth a visit if you have some time to spare. While we were visiting the site, the visitor centre opened, but we didn’t have time to check it out: it was time to go visit Caol Ila distillery.

  • Yes, we’re in the right place.

It took just a few minutes to drive back from Finlaggan, after which we left Mr Vantastic in the new parking lot, next to the electric vehicles’ charging points. From there, we walked on a very nice wooden footbridge to enter the new visitor centre, from which you get some very nice views of the production site and the Paps of Jura (to note, for accessibility you can drive closer to the building). The visitor centre is “carved” inside a warehouse, of which they sacrificed a portion for visitors. It’s clearly new, with a typical Diageo’s style shop, not as nice as the Lagavulin one, but fortunately without that airport duty-free look as Talisker’s. At the bottom of the shop, there is a very long bar, and behind it, the “tasting room”: a few tables in front of a very large glass window with a magnificent view. On that day, the sunshine definitely made the experience memorable!

  • Can you spot the striding man?

As we walked in, they offered us a welcome dram: a choice between the blended malt Johnny Walker Islay Origin (a blend of Lagavulin and Caol Ila) and the Caol Ila 14y Four Corners of Scotland (the expression they brought in, together with Cardhu, Glenkinchie and Clynelish ones, to celebrate the “Johnny Walker”-ification of these distilleries). A few minutes later, we gathered at the tour starting point with our guide. Our guide was very new to the job (apparently ours was their second tour ever), so it wasn’t the most informative of the experiences: oh well, everyone needs to start somewhere (and we complemented the info with the Malt Whisky Yearbook 2024)!

We started in a room one floor below the visitor centre with a nosing experience of some aromas (as far as we remember, peat, supposed-sweet, sea and maritime spice?). It was followed by an 8-minute video about the history of the distillery and the crucial role it plays in DCL/Diageo’s blends, accompanied by animations on a relief map, with wee boats moving from Islay to the mainland and back. There was also a very informative wall display, with the parallel histories of Caol Ila and Johnny Walker. Overall, we felt this introductory part was a bit too long (slightly over half an hour), to the point that Gianluigi started doubting that there’d be a tour of production!

  • The ‘Four Corners’ part of the tour.

It was included indeed: we went down the stairs, crossed a courtyard to the distillery building, walking past the usual Johnny Walker statue and the old visitor centre (a small office on the ground floor). First, we visited the mill room, where a Porteus mill has been grinding malted barley since 1979, when the distillery was rebuilt. The husk/grit/flour split in the grist is the usual 20/70/10%, and the grist is then moved to the full Leuter mashtun for a slow mashing process to obtain a clear wort. They are equipped with eight wooden washbacks and two stainless steel ones, where fermentation lasts around 55-60 hours. This space, where mashtun and washbcks are, is very clean and tidy and looks very similar to other Diageo distilleries, including a table where all the processes are showcased “in miniature”.

  • A tidy distillery.

The still room is quite spectacular, with six stills aligned next to the glass windows. Of course, three of them are wash stills, for the first distillation (with descending lyne arms) and three are spirit stills, with straight lyne arms for the second distillation. After this, we went back to the warehouse/visitor centre, and we visited a part of the warehouse that is half-way between the two: many casks are still lying there, but the space is mainly used for other visits or tastings. There, we got to smell a few different casks from the bunghole.

  • The only spot where we could take a pitcure of the still room.

Finally, it was time for the tasting, in the area the back of the bar. We knew the drill, 3x15ml drams, drivers package ready to be filled with a small funnel, and a cocktail (the alcohol-free version for Gianluigi was based on a smoky tea, quite interesting, while for the others the base was Johnny Walker Black Label 12y). We got there a bit late, so by the time the tour was supposed to end, the guide had just finished to introduce the drams (and in fact, they left us to sip on our own). We started with the Caol Ila 12y, the distillery flagship: there is a reason why this distillery is called “Mr Consistent”, as even this widely available expression (watered down to 43% and probably chill-filtered) is a nice one. The next two were the two expressions only available at the distillery: the Distillery Exclusive and the Bottle-your-own (see below for specs). Both yummy, as usual, although they were way too pricey for what they are.

  • Failed attempt at capturing both tasting and amazing view in the background.

Caol Ila is by far the biggest distillery on Islay, with 6.5 million of alcohol litre per annum production, and because of this it tends to be one of the go-to peated expressions for independent bottlers, at much more reasonable prices. As a confirmation, the last three Feis Ile bottlings (2022, 2023 and 2024) were available at the shop, literally gathering dust. For example, the 2024 expression is a 13y sold at £185 – who would buy it considering that indies Caol Ila’s of similar age sell for about half that price?

Once Teresa and Edo finished their drams, we had to leave very quickly, as we didn’t have all the time we thought we’d have before the next visit, and we needed to get lunch too! Anyway, it was nice to finally get to see Caol Ila: probably, among Diageo’s whiskies, it is the one we drank the most throughout the years. Also, this was the only Diageo distillery we hadn’t visited yet (among the ones open to the public, plus Mortlach, Linkwood, Dailuaine and Auchroisk) – a six-year journey since we started with Oban in 2018. Of course, Brora is still missing – do you think they’ll will allow us in with a discount since we visited all the other ones???

Coming next, another of Islay’s classic: Bowmore! Until then, slainte!

Caol Ila Flavour Journey Tour

Price: £21.00 pp (July 2024)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: a welcome dram, choice between Johnny Walker 12y Islay Origin blended malt (42%) and Caol Ila 14y Four Corners of Scotland (53%), plus 3 drams at the end, Caol Ila 12y (43%), Distillery Exclusive (NAS, first and refill ex-bourbon and first fill re-charred California red wine, 57.4%) and Fill-your-own batch 2023/003 (10y, 1st fill ex-bourbon cask, 55.1%)

Distillery Exclusives: Distillery Exclusive Caol Ila (NAS, 47.4%, £100) and Fill-your-own batch 2023/003 (10y, 55.1%, £130)

Target: tourists and beginners

Value for money: good

Highlights: the tasting room facing the sound of Islay and Jura

Recommended: only if you’re really keen, but we think there are better options on the island for a standard tour (the view makes it worth though)

Link: https://www.malts.com/en-gb/distilleries/caol-Ila

#46.2 The return of the smoke

Off to Jura

 

TL; DR: After Port Ellen, we drove to Port Askaig to catch the Feolin ferry to Jura. Very different landscape here, except for the main settlement it feels very remote. The Jura distillery is tucked between the hill and the sea. Despite its not great reputation, we had some very good drams, and a great time overall.

(missed Part 1?)

The tour at Port Ellen overran slightly, about 10-15 minutes, which eroded the time we had to get to Port Askaig to catch the Feolin ferry and get to our next destination: the Isle of Jura. We sprinted in the vans, us first and Justine behind, and got there at the exact time it was scheduled to leave, just to see the ferry leaving…to our surprise, as it doesn’t happen often with Scottish and British public transport to be so on time. We were so close to make it that we joked about “Starsky and Hutch-ing” our way into the boat with a sprint, but it would have been a big ask to Mr. Vantastic. Oh well, the next ferry was only an hour later, still on time for our tour. We started fixing ourselves some food…but the ferry came back right away, and the staff decided for an extra trip (probably they needed it to accommodate two big lorries coming the other way). While Gianluigi drove on the ferry and then from the pier to Craighouse (the main settlement on the island), Teresa and Edo were holding the half-cooked food in the back (thankfully there are no pictures of this clumsy moment).

  • Spot the drammer.

The landscape looked different from Islay: more trees, less buildings, and the presence of the two Paps (the hills that can be seen from the north-eastern side of Islay) is certainly very notable. Fun fact, on the island there are more deer than people (nowadays about 250). Jura is also famous for being the place where Orwell wrote his masterpiece 1984.

Anyway, once in Craighouse, we parked the vans in a nice spot Justine had found, behind a multipurpose warehouse (including the Deer Island Rum distillery, closed unfortunately) and next to an old pier. A great spot, quiet and with some tables and benches too… just a shame that as soon as the wind calmed down, midges appeared to torment us. We just had time to walk to the Antlers Bistro for a coffee before going to Jura distillery for the tour.

  • And the tour begins.

The visitor centre is quite small, only a small entrance hall and a wee shop. Other than some merchandise and their full range of whiskies, they also have some special editions, a couple of distillery casks, bottlings, and the travel retail range. The guide for the day was Fiona, a local who has worked there for many years. She walked us through the shop and some offices to the courtyard, where she started introducing the distillery history, from its establishment (1810) to the first license (1831), and the troubled late 19th and early 20th century, when it closed. In 1960, the distillery was acquired by Charles Mackinlay & Co (of the famous Mackinley blend), rebuilt and extended, and in 1963 they restarted distilling. Since then, the distillery has never stopped producing (except for maintenance of course), not even during the whisky loch (when they just reduced production to 3 days per week).

  • Someone got distracted.

Their main malt supplier is Crisp, mainly Sassie and Lauriet, and they do heavily peated runs four weeks per year. The mill, a classic Porteous, was bought second hand in 1963, and never changed since. Their grist ratios are a bit different compared to others, with 15% flour, 25% husk and only 60% of grit. They do 28 5-ton mashes per week, working 24/7, and use the typical three waters at increasing temperatures (64.5, 75 and 85°C) in a semi-leuter mashtun. Each washback (six in total, all stainless steel) takes two full mashes, to which they add 150kg of Mauri yeast, left fermenting for about 60 hours. The two pairs of stills are heated by steam coils and used for a typical double distillation (7 hours the first one, 8 the second one), with a cut between 72% and 64% abv. Some casks are filled on site, usually the ones destined to stay in one of the four warehouses on the island (total capacity of 24,500 casks), while all the vatting and bottling (including re-racking for finishes) happens at Whyte and Mackay’s mainland sites in Invergordon and Grangemouth. To note, they recently demolished part of a warehouse to make space for a biomass boiler, so to decrease their environmental impact.

  • A glimpse of the still room.

After the tour, it was finally time for the tasting! A few words here: Jura whiskies, despite being best sellers in the UK, tend not to have the greatest reputation among whisky enthusiasts. Sales are probably driven by the notable number of expressions available at supermarkets (the Bourbon Cask, formerly known as “Journey”, the 10y, 12y, 14y Rye Cask, Seven Woods, Rum Cask, Red Wine Cask, Pale Ale Cask…have we forgotten any?), so well played to them. But quality-wise? Well, let’s say that in our opinion it’s not the best whisky you can find, not even for the money probably (when on sale, these expressions can be quite cheap). We had one bottle of Jura Journey a few years ago and tried very few independently bottled whiskies (maybe 2 or 3), so we were very curious to taste other expressions and didn’t really know what to expect. This is why, when we booked this tour, we went for the extended, fancier tasting.

A micro-warehouse for the tasting.

The tasting was set up in a dedicated warehouse-ish space (a damp room with a few dozen casks). Because we’d already parked for the night, we could all drink, yay! First dram, a 15y whisky finished for 1-2 years in oloroso sherry (42.8%), bottled for the south-east Asian market. Very sweet, a good start but not our thing (and the colour was suspiciously dark, which made sense given the target market). The second dram was definitely better, a travel retail 19y “The Paps” (45.6%), finished in a PX sherry butt (40 years old!). However, the third dram was the one where things started to get serious. It was a distillery cask, 1st fill ex-bourbon barrel, vintage 2016 (7.5y) and bottled at 60% – a very fruity dram, not too hot despite the high abv, and it took water very well too. The fourth dram was another distillery cask, same cask but a bit older (vintage 2008, 15y) at a slightly lower abv (55.5%), a very nice dram too. Finally, we had a choice between an unpeated 33y (distilled 1990, bottled in 2023) from a PX hogshead (44.8%), and an 18y heavily peated ex-bourbon barrel (distilled 2005, bottled 2023) at 53.7% – being four of us, we got two of each and we shared. They were both delicious in their own very different way.

  • A good line-up…
…with this one quite delicious.

After the distillery we went for dinner at the Jura Hotel. Our attempt to enjoy a pre-dinner pint outside lasted about 3 minutes, before the midges swarmed and made us run for a table inside. We had good time, good food, tasty pints and, worth noting, we found very clean bathrooms and strong Wi-Fi too! We soon retired to our campervans, to enjoy a last dram before a good night sleep (no wind this time!).

  • There are worse places to spend the night.

Overall, we loved the visit and the tasting, and Fiona was a great host, so money totally well spent. During the tasting we realised Jura can produce very tasty whisky, so probably the issue with their range is downstream. What is a bit strange, to us, is that all the supermarket expressions (all well below 46%, probably chill-filtered and with E15Oa too) seem to be aimed for the casual or novice drinker, none of them targets non-beginners. Other distilleries/brands (Glen Scotia, Loch Lomond, Laphroaig, Pultney, Tomatin, just to name a few) tend to target a wider range of drinkers, it’d be interesting to understand what drives Jura’s different approach.

Stay tuned for our time back on Islay! Until then, slainte!

Jura Distillery Exclusives Tour

Price: £50.00 pp (July 2024)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 5 drams, Jura 15 Sherry cask East Asia exclusive (42.8%); 19y The Paps travel retail (45.6%); Distillery cask 7y (60%); Distillery cask 15y (55.5%); choice between 33y ex-PX cask (44.8%) and 19y heavily peated ex-bourbon cask (53.7%), and a complimentary glencairn

Distillery Exclusives: Distillery cask ex-Bourbon 7y (60%, £90.00); Distillery cask ex-Bourbon 15y (55.5%, £120.00)

Target: whisky geeks

Value for money: good

Highlights: the island and the tasting

Recommended: if you want to try some good Jura’s, definitely!

Link: https://www.jurawhisky.com/en/

#46.1 The return of the smoke

The not-so-new guy on the block

 

TL; DR: More than two years after our first trip to Islay, we are finally back! This time, with Mr Vantastic and two special companions, we visited (almost) all the distilleries we didn’t manage the first time, starting with one that, 2 years ago, was still a building site: Port Ellen! A very beautiful site, with an experimental twist. 

It is not by coincidence that Islay is called the Queen of the Hebrides. There is something magical about this island, and it is not just the whisky. Maybe it has to do with the effort and the long trip to get there (well, unless you fly from Glasgow), that will take you through the west of Scotland and then, after a 2-hour ferry trip, finally on the island! But yeah, once you know, you know.

Our last trip, in spring 2022, was quite unfortunate: the rented campervan broke, so we had to book last-minute accommodations and cabs. During the only walk we did, it pished down rain, so we were also wet and smelly. But somehow, we managed to visit all the six distilleries we’d scheduled (Bunnahabhain, Ardnahoe, Kilchoman, Bruichladdich, Lagavulin and Laphroaig).

This trip was a long time coming, we would have liked to make it back in 2023,  but we couldn’t. Another idea was to go earlier this year  (2024, if you’re reading in the future) but the plan fell apart (well, we went to the stunning Raasay instead!). What finally made us take the step was the reopening of Port Ellen distillery. It originally opened in 1825, and the whisky was mainly used in blends. It was closed down by DCL (Distillery Company Ltd) during the whisky loch of the 80s, so together with many others, it didn’t make it to the new millennium. In the meantime, however, the whisky became a cult among single malt lovers, particularly the well-aged expressions (according to some experts, their malt was not well regarded at young ages, one of the reasons for closing it down). Therefore, similarly to Brora (and Rosebank, by Ian McLeod), Diageo decided to revive it: basically, it was rebuilt from scratch, near the Port Ellen maltings, to the west of Port Ellen village. It started production earlier this year. It is open to visitors, but with Diageo being Diageo, the tour is astonishingly priced at £200 (two-fricking-hundred)! Unlike Brora though (where the two available tours costed respectively £350 and £600 the first time we drove by, now -July ’24- changed to £225 and £900, ludicrous), they offer a once-a-month open day (first Friday or Saturday of the month), running several free tours per day: yay!

We took advantage of it as soon as we could, and we booked a spot for the July open day, for us and our friend Justine (Kask Whisky). Because it was on a Friday, we organised the whole weekend around it, with visits to other distilleries too. A couple of weeks after we’d booked everything, Edo (Gianluigi’s youngest brother) told us he wanted to come visit in July, so he joined us too. He likes whisky, and according to Gianluigi, he has the best palate of the family (he’s an exceptional cook!). So there we were, on a Thursday morning, ready for our trip: at first the two of us, Edo, and Mr Vantastic, on the road.

  • A sumptuous lunch.

Our ferry was booked for the evening, so we did a few stops in between: Fyne Ales brewery (always very tasty pints) and for lunch at Loch Fyne Oysters, pricey but the array of seafood we ate was exceptional! We also briefly stopped at the George Hotel, Inveraray, to say “hi” to our friend Ivan (and for Gianluigi and Edo to get a dram…Teresa was driving at that point). As we drove towards Kennacraig, the weather got worse, so much that they changed our destination, Port Askaig instead of Port Ellen (sad trombone sound). The wind was howling on Islay as well, but we drove straight to our parking for the night, while admiring some piles of peat drying out along the way. We parked our van next to Justine’s Post Dram Prat and had a small meal and a few drams (the Ardray, a new Suntory blended scotch, was the surprise of the evening), before slowly drifting to bed.

  • Calm after the (wind) storm…
  • …waiting for the tour.

Because of the wind, which was still blowing in the morning, we couldn’t get much sleep…especially Edo, who slept in the pop-up roof. We woke up early and had breakfast at the van with Justine. We were a tad slow, so before our visit we didn’t do anything except packing up the van, but we still arrived early at the distillery. Indeed, we were the first ones there, and at first everything looked closed. Fortunately, about 10 minutes before the tour starting time, someone opened the door and checked us in: for the first tour they were waiting for other 14 people, so 18 in total!

  • They finally opened the gate!

As everybody arrived, we started the tour with Allan, the distillery manager. He is very experienced, as he worked on all the four Diageo sites on the island (3 distilleries and the maltings), so we were quite excited. He started by showcasing the installations in the visitor centre hall. A note here: we call it “visitor centre”, but it is clearly different from what we are used to, even in comparison to other Diageo recently renovated distilleries. It is very modern looking and bright, and there is no shop (unless it is upstairs, where we didn’t go). The clear intention was to set up something classy…However, in a clumsy way, as to us it looked like a fancy residence or office lobby.

  • Modern art installation.

One great feature, instead, is their use of mostly renewable sources for energy. The distillery was (re)built with the intention of making it as carbon neutral as possible, which is very valuable. As we moved to production, Allan showed us their permanent lab, which is quite unique: here, a full-time analyst checks the peat levels in the barley and the spirit, thus serving both the distillery and the maltings.

We then took a look at the mill room, a very large space with a very modern mill, which we expected as the site has been totally rebuilt (so no Porteous here!). Back to the main production room, we were right in front of the mashtun: a stainless-steel big baby, semi-Leuter, with a shiny lid.

Look what’s mashing!

At the moment, they do 11 mashes per week, mainly with Concerto barley but really with “whatever comes in”, and they have no silent season (except for maintenance, when required). They do mashes of different sizes, one of 5.5 tons for the experimental stills, and one of 7.5 tons for the regular stills (more on that later). With less water runs per mash, this is one of the steps where they save on water, which is common to many Diageo distilleries nowadays. The process is like sparging when brewing beer, in our understanding, with only one water gradually heated up. The wort is then moved to one of the six Oregon pine washbacks, each one with a capacity of 52,000 litres, but they never reach these levels. Fermentation lasts between 92 to 130 hours, quite a long one. Allan allowed us to nose the wash, and if we wanted taste it, but none of our party did.

  • Fishing the wash.

Here is the interesting bit: the old stills that were in the distillery at the times of closing down in the 80s disappeared: they were sent to India and from there they lost track. So, the engineers at Diageo’s Abercrombie had to rely on drawings and sketches to recreate the new ones with the exact same shape. With these stills, the process is the usual: they run a double distillation, with the second cut taken after 25-30 minutes of foreshots, from 72-73% down to 60% (a large one!). The spirit is filled in both tankers and casks on site, usually diluted at 63.5%. However, they also have a second pair of stills, similar but smaller, that they use to experiment. The most interesting part is that instead of having the usual 3-part second distillation (foreshots or head, middle cut or heart, and low wines or tail; the first and last discarded and usually redistilled), the safe can separate out up to 10 different cuts, other than the discarded parts. These don’t get mixed together, and they are used to study and experiment how different cuts provide different flavours to the whisky, and in particular how this relates to the whisky peatiness and smokiness. We got to nose samples, and (maybe the power of suggestion) the difference was definitely there, in particular when comparing the first sample to the last.

  • Traditional spirit safe on one side…
…and experimental spirit safe on the other side.

After this, the tour ended. In general, the distillery manager giving the tour, and in particular the last bit, made the visit really worth it, even if we didn’t manage to try any sample (which we kind of expected). Overall, it was great to see this very beautiful new old distillery…We’d say we’re looking forward to the whisky in the coming years, but we know we’ll hardly be able to get it, if things stay the way they are now in terms of prices.

Stay tuned for more whisky action, and a little spoiler: we had to take another ferry! Until then, slainte!

Port Ellen Open Day

Price: free (open day, July 2024)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: nope

Distillery exclusive: none

Target: locals and whisky nerds

Value for money: well, it’s freeee…

Highlights: the beautiful new architecture and the experimental stills

Recommended: yes if it’s the open day

Link: https://www.malts.com/en-row/distilleries/port-ellen

#22 Goodbye 2022, see you soon 2023

A very dramming year

 

TL;DR: As usual this period gives us a chance to reflect on the year about to end. It has been an intense one for us, particularly the second half. Whisky-wise, we had some very fantastic experiences, some disappointing, and a few average ones. While we are looking forward to “dramming around” in 2023, here our 2022 highlights.  

Aaaand…It’s December, and we are finally on holidays. By the time you will be reading this, another Christmas will have just passed, we hope you had a great day of celebrations with your loved ones, and that you are now bloated and relaxing on Boxing Day (or St. Stephen, as it is known in Italy).

Because of our jobs, we both arrived at the end of the year very tired. However, it was also a year full of fantastic whisky experiences, that we hope to repeat next year. In 2022, we visited 19 (Gianluigi) and 20 (Teresa) new distilleries (17 in Scotland and one in England together, Gianluigi visited one in Canada, Teresa one in Ireland and one in England). We also had the chance to revisit some good old acquaintances, like GlenAllachie and Deanston (amongst our favourites). We were able to go to Orkney (hurray!) to catch up with both Scapa (aye!) and Highland Park (nay!).

Sheep grazing with Scapa in the back.

And, finally (FINALLY), we visited Islay for the first time, after our March 2020 trip was cancelled by you-know-what. What a crazy holiday that one, our rented campervan broke down on day 1, half-hour away from the ferry terminal. Although we had to get last-minute accommodations and move around by taxi, we managed anyway! And what a visit, we have to say that whisky tourism on Islay is something really different. Take the Laphroaig tour for example, the token system to pick the drams for your tasting at the end makes it much more flexible than most of the other tours, so that can be enjoyed by both novices and experts. Moreover, Bunnahabhain (best warehouse tasting ever…just the bottling prices a bit too steep), Lagavulin, and Kilchoman rewarded us travelling there by including no-core range drams, all limited ones, which made the experience truly special. We wished other distilleries on far-away islands would do the same… We can’t wait to go back to Islay, to catch up with the other distilleries, and revisit some.

Moments before the best warehouse tasting ever.

Other than Islay we had some incredible whisky experiences, like the Deanston Winter Fest (coming up soon in the blog), or the GlenAllachie tour during the “Speycation” (coming up soon too).

Deanston WinterFest: that’s happiness after three tastings.

This word was brilliantly created by our friend Cath, and greatly implemented by  Justine (Kask Whisky): over the weekend we visited 5 distilleries (+ 1 being built) and did a few tastings, including one in the now closed Coleburn distillery, and one in the Strathisla’s warehouse. A couple of weeks earlier, we were again in Speyside for the Dramathon, and of course we visited (or revisited) a few distilleries: Glenfarclas (new visit), Glen Grant and Glen Garioch on the way back (both revisits).

The direct-fired Glen Garioch spirit still.

Some of the tours we did were OK, a bit standard but nothing to complain about: we’d say that usually you get what you pay for. Disappointments came from distillery-exclusive bottling prices. In some cases, instead of rewarding you for visiting the distillery (and already paying for a tasting or a tour), they put a 20-30 quid premium on those. Not nice. The only distillery experience that was really a disappointment and we regret paying for was Highland Park. Despite avoiding the basic tour (£30, already not cheap) we opted for the improved one (£75, the most expensive tour we did so far) to be denied any dram of distillery exclusives or other limited bottlings, and just taste the core range which we could have done in Edinburgh anytime. An expensive tourist trap, we won’t go back there (sorry James, you were a superstar guide though!).

A nice but waaaaay to pricey Blair Athol (£120!!!).

With the Covid19 restrictions behind our back, we could attend our very first whisky festivals, the Fife whisky festival in March and the Whisky Fringe in August – we had a lot of fun, let’s see if it’ll be the same with bigger events.

Enjoying a break between the two Fife Whisky Festival sessions.

In-person tastings came back too. We did a few organised by our friend Justine, of course, as well as others by Mark, Murray (both at Kilderkin) and Colin at Tipsy Midgie. We had some cracking drams, including a 20y Dutch single malt from Zuidam, a fantastic Doorly’s rum (from Foursquare distillery) and some cracking Daftmill-s and Bruichladdich-s. Also, SMWS events came back, including our favourites: Outturns and Distillery Visits (an event where you can taste whiskies brought by a distillery representative together with some provided by the SMWS). This year we did the Glen Moray distillery visit with Iain Allan connected remotely and the Distell one (Deanston/Tobermory) with the very funny Brendan McCarron: both cracking events with awesome whiskies! Gianluigi also decided to become an Aqvavite Youtube Channel Patreon: Roy’s content and entertainment are really priceless, and this was long overdue. We also attended a very funny blind tasting in Glasgow where we finally met all those whisky folks we’d only seen on screen until then.

Awesome Aquavitae event in Glasgow!!!

By writing this up, we realised 2022 was intense not only because of work, but because of whisky too! We hope to bag more distilleries in 2023, although we’ll probably try to be more selective when picking tours and experiences. We are also starting to organise whisky tastings: the first will be towards the end February and will be Port-cask related (we got the idea during our fantastic trip in Portugal…tickets here), but the following ones will involve bottles we picked up in our travels, not necessarily at distilleries, eheh…Stay tuned! Overall, it’s still a very long way to become whisky geeks, but we’ve learned a lot this year and we hope to continue the trend!

Not just whisky for us…coming to a tasting soon!

Happy holidays and see you next year! Slainte!

#12.5 From Islay with love

Back to mainland… Au revoir, Islay (Epilogue)

 

A straight return to Leith and some reflections about our first trip to Islay. 

(missed Day 3, Day 2, Day 1 or the Prologue?)

We woke up a bit sad: we weren’t on Islay anymore. The night before we had made good use of the disposable grill (in the parking lot…) and, exhausted, went straight to bed. After breakfast we called AA right away, still puzzled about what to do with the campervan. Another guy came, again from the super helpful Stag Garage, and helped us turn the van on. One objective now: drive straight to Edinburgh, without turning it off! It looked like one of those challenges in the old ads of Amaro Montenegro (at least the ones on Italian TV), but we could do it, fuel was enough. And yes, we made it: four hours later we successfully drove it to a garage in Leith previously agreed with the owner, stopping only once for a leak and once for Teresa to unload our stuff (Gianluigi stayed in the van… we don’t feel comfortable enough to leave a running vehicle around Leith yet)! After a celebratory coffee and pint, we finally went home.

So that was it, our very first trip to Islay, and hopefully, the first of many! It didn’t go as we planned it out, and we definitely didn’t like being moved from one distillery to another like cattle. We like doing things our way, and it’s not just about the whisky: taking our time, exploring the roads and the places, enjoying the changing landscape and feeling the community. But setbacks happen, so we feel lucky that we still managed to somehow visit the island, at least! Anyway, visiting six distilleries in three days made us reflect on a popular topic in the whisky community: what makes a good distillery tour?

First, the tour guide, definitely. An experienced, engaging and enthusiastic guide always makes the difference, even when the distillery doesn’t have much to offer (for example, because whisky is not ready yet or because the site is not the most beautiful one). We always admired the ability of a guide to set the tone of the tour depending on whether the crowd is knowledgeable or not, and to answer questions at a depth which felt just right for the audience. Most of the guides we found on the island were great, and were a big component of our experience.

This was outstanding!

Second, the type of visit matters too. We always have fun visiting production, but warehouse tastings are becoming more and more our favourite whisky experience. The trip on Islay only confirmed it: the feeling, the smell, the dampness…there is really no other place like a distillery warehouse! We already did some excellent warehouse tastings before coming to Islay (Deanston, Cadenhead’s twice…). Among the ones we did so far, Bunnahabhain Warehouse 9 was definitely one of the best ever. Next time we’d like to do the distillery tour, but we’ll likely do the warehouse tasting too (yes, again!). Similarly for Lagavulin, with a slight difference: Bunna’s drams were clearly chosen as outstanding ones, all very rich and showcasing the influence of both cask and spirit; Lagavulin’s drams were cleaner and spirit-forward, and this gave to the tasting a very valuable educational angle, it was like following the spirit in its maturation journey. We loved both!

Happier and more knowledgeable after the Lagavulin warehouse tasting.

We know they have warehouse tastings at Laphroaig and Bruichladdich too, but while we couldn’t fit them in this trip, we’ll definitely check them out next time. In both distilleries we did the “regular” tour, although we were pleasantly surprised because in both cases the tour was definitely whisky geek oriented, and nothing like the quite dull regular tours you can find sometimes on the mainland. Probably being in a distillery on Islay is definitely a sign of whisky-geekery, you cannot stumble there on your way to Loch Ness we guess…

Laphroaig malting floor.

Having a good experience definitely makes you connect deeper with a whisky, but in these two cases we already liked them both. Laphroaig was one of the drams that got Gianluigi into whisky in a first place, although now we moved away from the main range (the Select and the 10y), trying solid drams like the Lore and the Cairdeas was a pleasant discovery. The basic Bruichladdich range (Classic Laddie and Port Charlotte 10y) is very solid already, but unfortunately getting special releases or and single casks can be a bit pricey…in particular the whole Octomore range.

Bruichladdich still.

Finally, every distillery has its own features, and even just this makes the visit worthwhile (ok ok, we accept this might only apply to enthusiasts like us). While some of the distilleries might seem similar at a first glance, ultimately they are very different in their philosophy, style and, more importantly, their malt. For example, we were very curious about Kilchoman, being one of the youngest distilleries on the island, but still built in a moment when the whisky frenzy wasn’t as high as it is now. The fact that this tour was supposed to happen over two years ago only made us more eager. It did not disappoint, and we both really liked everything about the distillery, from its mix of modern and traditional features, to their philosophy. A truly farm distillery, something we hadn’t seen many times.

Kilchoman warehouse…Oh the smell!

Ardnahoe tour was the only one we found a bit basic, in particular compared to the others on the island, but we have to consider that it’s much harder when you are such a young operation (from 2019…and with 2 years of pandemic in between) and don’t have well aged stock to showcase. Still, it was very interesting to see a perfect example of how new distilleries are clearly built with visitors in mind. Also, their new make is very promising, so we’ll look to go back after their single malt releases.

At least this time we have bad weather as an excuse for our bad Ardnahoe pictures…

The only thing a bit off was some of the crowd we encountered in a few distilleries. It’s understandable being enthusiastic, but when that becomes rudeness it’s not ok: touching things you’re not supposed to touch, making the party wait for you, not respecting personal space, bothering the guide with questions about other distilleries (…why?), talking over the guide and reply to question directed to them…Please don’t be that guy! We had already witnessed some of these previously, but not all at once like on Islay…We were a bit shocked, so shocked that we thought the whole thing was worth a bingo card! Big shout out to the guides that, kindly but firmly, kept the undisciplined visitors straight!

Here a bingo card for your leasure!

Well, we will need to go back to Islay, hopefully sooner rather than later: first to visit the other distilleries (Bowmore, Caol Ila and Ardbeg, plus the close-enough Jura…and of course one day Port Ellen and Portintruan), and probably to revisit some. Hopefully next time things will be much smoother (not that it would take much, to be honest…), so we’ll have a chance to have a more fulfilling experience!

As you might imagine, we are already starting to planning it out!