IIslay, a tiny island at the southern edge of the Western Isles of Scotland, is home to eight whisky distilleries. You may have heard of Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Lagavulin, and Laphroaig. There is also a new one, Kilchoman. The nearby island of Jura also has one distillery. During an ambitious week, we toured a total of six of them.
Islay has a reputation for making some of the finest single malt whiskies. Some of Islay's distilleries were built in the 1800s. The newest Islay distillery, Kilchoman, just started making whisky a couple of years ago. The first batch won't be ready for at least five to 10 years. That's quite a long-term investment. All they are selling now are shop goodies like T-shirts and glasses.
Single malt is whisky that is produced by only one distillery. Most commercial whiskies are blends from many distilleries.
Malt is barley that is germinated and allowed to sprout. Then the process stops as the grain is heated and dried out. Islay's distilleries use peat to heat the malted barley, giving it a smoky or peaty flavor.
Almost anything can be distilled. Vodka is made with potatoes or wheat. Apples, pears, peaches and other types of fruit are used in Austria to make schnapps. However, only barley and rye can be malted.
The malted barley is then ground and mixed with hot water to produce a sugary liquid called wort. The wort is fermented to make a weak beer without hops known as wash. On one tour, the guide dipped a container into the huge washback and we tasted what looked like sewer water. Not bad, though.
The wash is transferred to the still house with its imposing longnecked copper kettles. It usually goes through two distillations and comes out as a strong spirit. It's as clear as vodka from the still. The aging process in oak barrels gives it color and smoothness.
On a visit to one of the distilleries, we were able to taste the fresh whisky from a usually locked safe before it went to the casks. The high-strength stuff was about 70 percent alcohol. Before bottling, the whisky is diluted with local spring water to a drinkable 46 percent. The product we didn't drink, that flowed to the casks, will stay there for another 10 to 15, maybe even 20 years. Judging from the ages of the distillery workers, some people making this whisky may not live to drink it.
The Laphroaig distillery offers a program called "Friends of Laphroaig." You get one square foot of land for life if you register, using the bar code off a bottle of Laphroaig whisky. You may collect your rent when you visit: a free dram. On this plot of land with over 250,000 registered "Friends," there have been weddings and scatterings of ashes. When we visited, the whole thing was virtually under water, with little flags sticking out from the flooded plots.
Bruichladdich recently called a bottling of theirs WMD. They have 14 webcams around the distillery that can be viewed online. In 2003 they received an email from an observer "curious as to why the webcam that was inside the shop/bar is no longer there, or at least, functional". The email was from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in the United States.
Production Director Jim McEwan explained, "When we replied that it was simply a short-term technical problem, we asked why on earth they could be interested in the comings and goings of a small distillery off the west coast of Scotland."
He continued, "The answer we received was even more surreal. The department that contacted us deals with the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
"Funnily enough, chemical weapon processes look very similar to the distilling process. It just goes to show how tweaks to the process flow, or equipment, can create something very pleasant (whisky) or deadly (chemical weapons)."
