Pacifist's Blog

Up at 0430. Joy. We had to catch the ferry at 0730 in Port Askaig which was a 45-minute drive away, plus we had to be there 30 minutes early, plus we had to pack the tent up. Thanks to Fiona’s foresight we’d had a test run at decamping on Jura so we knew roughly how long it would take. So this morning we did the whole thing in almost complete silence like a well-oiled machine, the three of us barely putting a foot wrong. As it was we made it to the Ferry half-an-hour ahead of schedule. This time we ended up on the slightly older MV Hebridean Isles, which was a bit rougher than the Finlaggan. And yes, we did go straight to the restaurant despite my earlier rant about people who do that. But hey – it was half-seven in the morning, we hadn’t had breakfast and they were offering hash browns. What choice did we have? This ship also had a live location-update display on one of the decks so we could follow our progress. Or y’know, you could just look out the window, but this used technology! My coach left Stirling at just after 9 so did we head back straight away? Well, not exactly.

After getting back onto the mainland we headed up to Oban where we had a distillery tour booked for noon. This would get us there an hour early, so we stopped off at a second-hand store en-route so Kit could look for razor blades. No such luck. I took the opportunity of this drive to introduce him to Porcupine Tree, which I think he appreciated.

I have been to Oban before, coming here on a day-trip with Fiona last time I came to visit and Kit was at work all day. It’s a very popular tourist attraction, especially on a day like the one we had. The sun was still belting out as hot as it dared and the shoreline was full of people making the most of the weather. The fact it was the weekend probably also helped. Oban is somewhat unusual in that the town was built around the distillery in the 18th century. Quite why they chose this location I’m not sure, as there wasn’t much going on besides quarrying. The port didn’t become widely used until the 19th century, so it wasn’t that. Perhaps it was the smuggling clause again, or maybe they just happened to own a piece of land here and it had a good water supply? Don’t know. Anyway, we arrived in Oban at 11am so we hid from the sun in the Oban Chocolate shop/coffee shop, which is a must visit if you’re in the area. Have their hot chocolate with a little “tasting tray”, which lets you pick a few of their chocolates to have along with your drink. We decided to send a box to Emma from Ardbeg as a thank you. Then it was off to the distillery. Fiona didn’t come with us this time, choosing instead to have a look around town.

Oban is yet another Diageo owned distillery so one again no photos. We were just about to start the tour when the fire alarm went off. Kit leapt for the door, taking as many people with him as possible. When he got outside he explained – it’s not wise to stay in a building full of ethanol vapour if there’s a chance there’s a fire. Fair enough. We then restarted the tour.

What makes Oban unusual? Well, firstly, they only produce one whisky. A 14-year old variation. Nothing is done quickly here. Not only do they mature for 14 years instead of 10 or 12, but they ferment the barley at a lower temperature for longer, and boil the stills at a lower temperature as well, so it takes hours and hours for the distillation to complete. In addition, rather than running the vapours through a conventional condenser which uses cold-water, they have what they call “the worm”, which is a series of pipes which run round and round the outside of the building. Unfortunately there isn’t anywhere you can stand inside or out in order to see them, but in the still room you can see the pipe head out the roof and back in again. Have a look at this:

That’s the worm at Craigellachie, which is entirely indoors. Now, imagine that looping round and round the outside of the building. Strange, eh? Curiously, they even apply this “slow” philosophy to the casks. They don’t use second-hand. They use third or fourth-hand, so it takes much longer for the flavour to develop. Also, with the exception of the “Distller’s Edition”, they don’t use sherry casks. Verdict? Nice. A little bland but subtle. Goes well with crystallised ginger, as demonstrated in the tasting room. Makes a change from the blunt trauma that is Lagavulin. We also found out the probable cause of the fire alarm. Nothing was running as currently Oban don’t work on a Saturday (although this is changing soon). Because of the heat all the windows in the still room were open, and some workmen were repainting the lines in the adjacent car park. Perhaps the fumes got in?

Lunch! Fiona provided us with Ryvita and a block of Isle of Mull Cheddar which she’d picked up in a deli while we were busy tasting whisky. If you’ve never had Mull Cheddar I highly recommend it. It’s soft, unpasteurised and absolutely delicious.

Then we were off vaguely Eastwards towards Inveraray, where we had a quick rest-stop. We’d passed through it on the way to the ferry last week but didn’t have time for a look round, so we resolved to see it on the way back. Bit of a diversion but hey… we’re on holiday after all. Inveraray is a popular tourist destination as it’s right by the edge of the huge Loch Fyne, and on bright sunny days as we were having you can barely move. Apparently there is recent legislation in Scotland which states that coach drivers have to take a break every 2-hours. Coincidentally, Inveraray is just short of 2-hours from Glasgow. I don’t imagine Scottish Citylink build Inveraray just for their coach drivers though. Hmm. Bought some tablet and fudge. I was surprised to see a bottle of Kilchoman whisky for sale in the garage. Firstly because garages aren’t the first place I’d think of when drawing up places to get high-quality booze. Secondly, I thought we’d be too far away. This might be about as far as it gets, because this would be the last bottle I saw for the time being. The Whisky Shop in Oxford don’t sell it. I checked.

Onwa-! Wait.. what was that? “Microbrewery”? Sure. Let’s have a quick look. And so we discovered Fyne Ales hidden well off the main road but with a fantastic range of beer. Their tasting room and distribution room were one and the same, so whilst surrounded by stacks of 24-packs, Kit and I tried a few samples. I picked a couple of the Maverick and one of the Vital Spark to take back, as I thought they were both wonderful. They aren’t bottle-conditioned like Islay Ales, but I don’t think that should be a requirement…

Onwards! Our final destination for the day was the Duck Bay Marina restaurant. Kit and Fiona had been here before, and said the food was outstanding. Not the cheapest place in the world, but good value considering how nice the food was. Despite the place being full of half-dressed holidaymakers I still felt like I should have worn a tie or something. Kit had a chilli-con-carne burger which looked like a sloppy joe and Fiona had a lasagne. I had the fajitas and they were indeed superb. Wonderfully piquant with a delicate sweet aftertaste. The plate was also doubly interesting as they were self assembly, so you got something resembling a wooden TV-dinner tray with compartments for the fajita mix, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, cheese, and a tub for the tortillas. The only thing missing was some lettuce, but I wouldn’t dare ask as the chef obviously knew what he was doing. Nothing was rushed, and we passed the time watching people play on the water. The restaurant has huge windows looking out onto the loch and you can clearly see all the jetski riders, yachts and suchlike going round and round. Then every ten minutes or so they all rush to the sides as the seaplane comes down, circles and takes off again.

Finally back to Stirling. We just had time for a coffee at McDonalds before I was thrown back onto the coach and headed South. Much fun was had. What a week!

Next year in Orkney!

Many more photos are available here

Up at the crack of dawn and off to Bruichladdich distillery on the west side of the island. First question we pondered was “Why is there a WW2 sea mine in your car park?”. We never got an answer to that one. Our tour guide was this crazy Irish guy, who did something I hadn’t seen before – when we got to the spirit safe, he put a cup in and let us taste the raw spirit. Okay, so it was about 68% ABV and most of the people on our (surprisingly busy) tour didn’t like it, but I quite enjoyed it. Reminded me of schnapps, although incredibly strong. We also had a look in one of their warehouses (Cunningly entitled Warehouse One), which was at the top of the hill and absolutely huge. They had a room inside a room inside a room, and as you went deeper in you could feel the temperature drop. This is where they told us that because of the temperature differential, whisky matures at different speeds depending on how far it is from the floor. Huh. Whaddya know?

Bruichladdich is a peculiar distillery. It was mothballed but has recently been taken over and reopened, but due to the short period of time it was closed the new investors have access to all of the casks that were in the warehouse at the time. As to the whisky itself, it was quite nice, but I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed at quite how many varieties they offer. They seem to be attacking the market with a vengeance, even releasing under the “Port Charlotte” sub-brand in order to sell peated whisky. Now, this is strange. Pretty much all Islay whisky is heavily peated, naturally because of all the peat here. Bruichladdich is only very lightly peated, and relies on a sub-brand for it’s peated whisky. They also sell gin under the title “The Botanist”. Presumably gin has a fast turn on investment compared to whisky as there’s no maturation…. this is distilled in a tiny little still at the end of the room next to all the other ones.

Oh, and their labelling reminds me of Absolut vodka, which is just weird.

Right. Out we go, back around the island to Laphoraig. These next three distilleries are quite strange in that they’re all on the south coast, all on the same road and *very* close to each other. They are also very, very heavily peated. So… how do they differentiate? Well, we’ll see.

Laphoraig is the favourite whisky of Princes Charles, apparently the 15-year old is his preferred tipple. Which they don’t make any more. So he’s either got a secret stash somewhere or he’ll have to switch to something else. This distillery was very strange to me. Whilst all the ones we’ve seen so far were attempting to keep at least some of the tradition alive (even Kilchoman) whether by doing some malting themselves (Bowmore, Kilchoman) or doing as much as possible by hand without computers (Bruichladdich), Laphroaig don’t seem too bothered. All the distilleries so far have either had a steel mash tun and wooden washbacks, or wooden mash tun and wooden washbacks. This one had everything in steel. It was the closest thing I’d seen to a chemical plant since Caol Ila.

Kit set off an alarm at this point but nobody noticed. I guess since the Prince wasn’t visiting at the time nobody cared.

Laphoraig produces a very narrow range of products, which makes a change from Bruichladdich. 10-year, 18-year and Quarter Cask. That’s just about it except for one offs. Verdict? It’s very, very peaty. Frankly, I didn’t much care for it. Perhaps I just don’t like peaty whisky. That’s something I’m still working out. I did quite like the Quarter Cask. Not only was it cask strength, it’s matured in smaller barrels so the liquid has greater surface-area contact with the wood. Does this make a difference? Apparently. The distilleries still argue whether the water used makes any difference given it’s distilled anyway… Caol Ila say no but a couple of the others say yes. Most don’t mention it but they’re still proud of their source and make sure to tell everyone on their tours exactly where they get their water from…

They also run a free “Friends of Laphoraig” club, where they give you a square foot of peated land just North of the distillery. In return, they pay you rent for using it. The rent is in the form of one miniature a year, which you have to come to the distillery to collect. Prince Charles naturally has plot one. I asked if he comes by every year for his dram. They didn’t know, although they were kind enough to fill our water bottle for us.

Oh yes. Unlike Bruichladdich which showed us a warehouse-style maturation room, this one was like something you might find at the bottom of a mineshaft. The ceiling was fairly low, but the room went on forever.

Right. Back to Lagavulin. Frankly, I didn’t like this one very much. I found the peatiness overwhelming, and this time the cask strength variation didn’t seem much better. I did however like the decor of their visitor’s centre, which reminded me of an old-fashioned train station waiting room, but with fancy sofas and an open fire, which was nice. We were also interrupted during the tasting by two very drunk Scandinavian (I think) bikers who stopped by to say hello to us all on their way back from their “full” tour (many distilleries offer a more in-depth tour where you get to try nearly everything on the menu, but it takes most of the day). Lagavulin is another Diageo brand, and again no photos were allowed. They drew special attention to how they used a fork of the river for cooling, but it wasn’t clear whether this was special to them or standard practice. Presumably since it doesn’t actually enter the process it makes no difference whatsoever and you might as well use tap water…

Right. Off to Ardbeg. The last distillery of today. This didn’t fill me with hope, as apparently Ardbeg is the peatiest whisky on Islay (Except for Bruichladdich Octomore, which is named after a long-gone distillery with an obscene phenol content) and I didn’t care much for the last two. Imagine my surprise when I found it quite palatable. I wonder if it’s because Ardbeg tend to bottle at a higher ABV (46%) than most (40%)…

Special mention must be made to our tour guide, Emma. We’d chosen the 30-minute whistle-stop tour which was the last one of the day as it was all we could fit into our busy schedule. Since we were the only ones on the tour, we just had a wonderfully informal chat about what makes Ardbeg different, rather than going through how to make whisky for the fourth time today. We then retreated to the bar where we tried the whisky (10-yr old) and chatted about Scotland, vodka, schnapps, and all sorts. We also got to try Ardbeg Alligator (51.2%), which is by far the most unusual drink I’d had all week.

Most Scottish whiskies are matured in second-hand American Bourbon casks, so some of the Bourbon flavour leaches into the whisky. Some are then finished off with Sherry casks for a few months to impart a smoother, deeper, rounder flavour. Not this one. This is matured in a new, unused Bourbon cask which has first been severely charred. The appearance of the burnt cask gives the whisky it’s alliterative name. And it was frankly astounding. Presumably the same principle that applied to our charred potatoes apply to whisky too. Despite the peatiness of the whisky itself I thought it was wonderful. A wonderfully complex flavour, well worth a try if you get the chance. So did Kit, who bought a bottle….

So that was four distilleries in one day. We didn’t get a medal, but we did get about a dozen drams between the two of us. We celebrated by going back to the campsite and paddling in the sea. Even Kit, who doesn’t like getting his feet wet, took his socks off at one point – although he didn’t seem to be enjoying himself. He later got his own back by photographing me whilst preparing dinner. Do you know how hard it is to make arrabbiata sauce in a mess tin on a campstove?

Revenge will be had.

We also got a fellow camper to take a picture of us all together.

Thus concludes our last full day on Islay.

Let’s do some laundry! Off we went to Bowmore (Bo’more) to do some laundry. The laundrette in question turned out to be a leisure centre, but they let us do our laundry anyway. It cost about eight pounds including drying, but we didn’t want to take any chances with the weather. Whilst it had been nothing but sunshine so far we were skeptical it would last. Curiously, the leisure centre itself was right next door to Bowmore distillery. In fact, it technically was IN the distillery, as they had previously donated one of their warehouses to the community of Bowmore who then turned it into a leisure centre. So while we had laundry in, Kit and I went to see what time their tours were, not having much luck so far this holiday, and Fiona went to strip the Tourist Information centre bare of their postcards.

It turns out Fiona currently has a serious thing for postcards. She buys them for people she doesn’t even know yet. It’s a new hobby, and hopefully this might prompt her to talk about it on her blog…

As luck would have it, Bowmore distillery were running a tour which started just as our laundry finished. Huzzah! The nice people at the laundrette/leisure centre offered to take our laundry out of the dryer and fold it if we weren’t back in time, so it was nice not to worry about that. The other nice people we met were in the distillery itself and they let us charge my phone while we were on the tour…

Bowmore is apparently the Queen’s favourite whisky, and it does have a certain salty taste which is ascribed to it’s location by the sea. Erm… not that I’m suggesting the Queen only likes it because it’s salty. Maybe she likes it’s “beautiful coastal notes” whatever that means. Sea salt, right? That may just be suggestion though, as I was told that before I actually tasted it. All bar one of the distilleries on Islay are by the sea, but this one is unique in having a maturation warehouse below sea-level, which might have something to do with it. Maybe it floods once a year or something. Bowmore whisky is bottled in Glasgow, and is quite special in that a certain percentage of the barley they use is grown on Islay, then malted and peated on their own malting floor (although they aren’t unique in this aspect). Kit had a go at turning the barley which looked like exhausting work, and then they let us have a look in the kiln, which was on. Predictably it stank of warm peat and Horlicks. Fiona ate some of the barley. Apparently this is to be expected, and the event would be repeated several times over the next two days. But what about the whisky? Very nice, actually. Quite light and very drinkable, though somewhat unremarkable. Of course by this point I didn’t have much basis for comparison so for all I know this could have been how all whisky tastes after 10 years… They also let us have a dram of the Cask Strength which was a real eye opener!

We had a quick lunch at the Co-op (Macaroni pie!), and then decided we might as well try and visit as many distilleries as possible. I’m not really sure where this idea came from. It wasn’t as if we were bored and needed to find something to do sharpish. Visiting them all would tricky, almost impossible given we only had a day and a half to do it, but we were going to try our best. Something I forgot to mention at the time is that we had asked Paul at Islay Ales which distilleries he’d recommend visiting, because at the time we only wanted to do one or two and didn’t know much about them. He had mentioned Kilchoman, a relatively new distillery out on the Western side of the island, so off we went.

Kilchoman is very unusual. Not only is it the only distillery in the area located inland (it’s on a farm owned by a guy who decided that he wanted to own his own distillery) but it’s only been running since 2005, making it the newest distillery on Islay (and the second(?) newest in Scotland). So naturally they were pleased to give tours and let us take lots of pictures.

Many distilleries are proud of their age and don’t like to rush things. Since whiskys mature differently depending on the room they are stored in and even the height of the shelving, casks are usually blended together to produce a consistent result. That 12-year old single malt will have come from one distillery, yes, but it’s almost certainly a mixture of casks, the youngest of which would be 12-years old. There do exist single-cask whiskies but they don’t seem to be very cheap, and really, does it matter that much? If you like the whisky then surely allowing them to ensure a consistent taste is forgiveable? Kilchoman on the other hand seem determined to release as many varieties as they can quickly as possible. Rather than go for a unified taste and number it by age, they instead seem to be releasing based on the year of release. That is, you can buy a “Winter 2011” whisky, or a “Summer 2010” whisky, so they’re all a little different. They’ve now been around for seven years and are having a go at consistency with their “Machir Bay” release, which they hope to make their first long term.

Kilchoman do as much as possible themselves, right down to even doing their own bottling and labelling on-site. As with Bowmore, a percentage of the barley they use is grown, malted and peated here, and they have just released a whisky called “100% Islay” which… well, you can probably guess. It’s not cheap, but everything involved with it is done on the island.

There may not really be such as thing as a micro-distillery, but Kilchoman seem to be as close as you can get. [I have since discovered Edradour and would love to visit sometime – apparently their stills are as small as you can legally get away with before they are deemed ‘portable’ and hence illegal]

Kilchoman may not be for whisky snobs, at least not yet since they haven’t got anything newer than 5-year, but I love their attitude. They have a single wash still, a single spirit still, the smallest spirit safe I have ever seen, and they do all their own packing and distribution. Good luck to them.

What was it like? I must confess I really liked this one. Like very lightly flavoured schnapps but without the sugar. After visiting Bruichladdich (tomorrow) and tasting the neat unaged spirit, it has made me think that perhaps overly aged whiskies are not for me. Kit isn’t fond of them – apparently they “taste like pencils”.

A quick word on spirit safes. I’m not really a person awed by engineering, but I find these things fascinating. It may just be because they’re made of brass. I like brass. I also like the notion that every single drop of spirit produced by the distillery has to go through here (at least twice, in effect). They are something of a relic as in the past only the taxman would have the keys and yet they remain because of Scottish law. Nowadays the distillery can open them up for cleaning or other purposes as long as they log the event. This one was open because the heat outside had made the glass steam up and they couldn’t read the hydrometers…

We then wanted to head down to nearby Bruichladdich, but we’d just missed their last tour. Never mind… Lagavulin had a special late tour tonight at half past five!

Except.. they didn’t. Apparently it was a misprint, and the last tour was actually half past four which we missed by ten minutes. But they gave us a couple of drams anyway by way of an apology [verdict tomorrow]. We resolved to come back the next day for the tour. Not just because it was a Diageo distillery and as such we’d get free entry. So we sat down with a pencil and a tour timetable for each of the distilleries and worked out a plan that would suit us. Tomorrow would be busy.

But that was another day. First Fiona and I went to play in the sea next to the campsite. This was somewhat of an experience for me as last time I’d done this I didn’t have long hair. Turns out long hair creates a lot of drag in water…

We then spent a good while collecting driftwood – there was surprisingly little of it on this beach. Once we’d gathered what we could we had a driftwood bonfire upon which we made potatoes (with cheese), bananas (with chocolate) and baked apples (with jam and sultanas). All three were delicious. Even though one of the potatoes almost caught fire it was alright on the inside. I also got a call from Matt P just before foodening which took all of us by surprise.

“That can’t be your phone” – Kit.

So whilst Kit played with fire, I chatted to Matt P whilst lying on a beach in the middle of nowhere. I guess our solitude was now thoroughly broken.