Scotch Whisky Making: A Trip to Islay

After visiting Bourbon country with my dad last year, we agreed that our next stop was Islay. It's a small island off the west coast of Scotland that features beautiful scenery and eight distilleries, all of which offer tours. We made it out there last week, and I have to say it really lived up to its billing as a paradise for whisky lovers. There is little else on the island other than the distilleries, and the passion of the locals really came out in the tours, along with some colorful Scottish accents.

We were there for two full days, which was enough time to visit 5 distilleries: Bowmore, Bunnahabhain, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, and Laphroaig (the three we missed were Caol Ila, Bruichladdich, and Kilchoman). I was hoping to hit more, but I quickly realized that the tours on Islay are much more thorough than the tours in Kentucky. They take you to every corner of the distillery and offer very generous tastings at the end. In some cases, we were left alone with 6-8 bottles of scotch and encouraged to help ourselves. It was an incredible experience and I learned a tremendous amount about the whisky making process.



Historically, distilleries would malt their own barley on site, but these days most distilleries buy their malt pre-malted to their specifications. Islay, being a major scotch producing area, has a company on the Island named Port Ellen Maltings that provides the malted barley for most of the distilleries. Kilchoman, Bowmore, and Laphroaig are the only distilleries that do malting on site, though they also buy some of their malt from Port Ellen Maltings. I've heard of some distilleries using some grain additions, but on Islay, all the distilleries use pure barley malt in their whisky making. In fact, as far as I could tell, they all use the same type of barley called optic barley, so literally the only difference in base spirits comes from how much peat smoke is used and the temperatures they mash at.

Malting barley is essentially soaking barley so that it germinates and sprouts thereby activating enzymes that convert unfermentable starches into easily fermented sugars. The barley is soaked in water then laid out to sprout in a well ventilated room.



After a couple days the barley starts to sprout.



It takes about a week in total for the barley to reach the point at which they want to stop the germination process.



This is what happens when the germination process is not stopped.



Once the germination is done, the sprouted barley is transferred to a kiln where it is dried out to stop the process.



The initial heat comes from a peat fire. Islay is covered in peat bogs (you can see them all over the island as you drive) so historically it was a natural choice of fuel for drying barley. The modern process still uses peat smoke for flavoring, but most of the heat comes from recycling left-over heat from the mashing process. The peat smoke is used for the first 30-60 minutes only. Each distillery desires a different peat profile in their malt. Ardbeg is known as the peatiest, though Lagavulin and Laphroaig aren't too far behind. Peat content (really phenol content) is measured in parts per million (ppm). Lately distilleries have been releasing special bottlings with ppms reaching well over 100, but the classic malts are between 20-50 ppm.



In addition to the naturally found fuel source of peat, the island also has abundant fresh water resources perfect for distilling. Each of the distilleries uses a different water source, found at a nearby lake or river. The water is redirected directly into the distillery and used for mashing the barley malt. Also, distilleries are found near the perimeter of the island so they can dump their by-products into the surrounding sea. The fish get fat on the by-products of distilling and the cows get fat on the spent malt that gets sold for cheap to surrounding farms. In other words, Islay is the perfect place to build a distillery.



Once the malt is fully dried, it is milled into a powder called the grist. The grist is essentially a coarse flour. The grist is then mixed with warm water in a large holding tank called the mash tun. The grist is soaked in water to created a sugary liquid called the wort. All the distilleries I visited soaked the grist three separate times (at different temperatures) to make sure that all the fermentable sugars are extracted. The left over grains are used as animal feed.



The wort is then transferred to fermentation tanks where yeast is added.



The yeast looks and feels like putty. The fermentation takes anywhere from 3-5 days. The end result is a sweet and yeasty liquid they call the wash which has a total alcohol content of about 8%. Many of the distilleries let you taste it, which is interesting, though it doesn't taste very good.



From there, the wash is transferred to the wash stills for first distillation. The liquid is heated up to the point where alcohol evaporates but water doesn't. The alcohol rises up the still then is cooled quickly in the condenser to create a clear liquid. For the first twenty minutes or so of distillation, the spirit produced is at a lower alcohol percentage and is not suitable for second distillation. This is called the head.



After about the twenty minutes, the liquid is tested for density using a hydrometer. Once it is determined that the resulting spirit is high quality, it is re-directed to a spirit still (functionally the same as a wash still) for second distillation. This is called the middle cut. After a period, the resulting liquid again drops in quality, this is called the tail. The head and the tail are mixed together and sent back to the wash still for re-distillation. All the distilleries use this same method of ensuring high quality spirits that are twice distilled. This way all the alcohol is eventually distilled and converted into base spirit ready for aging.



Once enough base spirit is collected, it is transferred to wood barrels for aging. The biggest difference between the different distilleries is what barrels they use and for how long (along with how much peat smoke flavor is in their barley malt). Most use some combination of used bourbon barrels and used sherry barrels, though many are experimenting with all different types.



Here I am filling a glass directly from a barrel that has been aging about 12 years. In order to be called scotch, the spirit has to age for at least 3 years, but for their various single malts, they're usually aged for 10 or more.



Here are two examples of whiskies straight from the barrel. The lighter one was aged in bourbon barrels and the darker one was aged in sherry barrels. Sherry barrels tend to be larger, so it takes longer to impart their flavor. So frequently you'll see whiskies aged in bourbon barrels then transferred to sherry barrels for finishing, or 80/20 blends of bourbon and sherry barrel aged whiskies.

I was surprised to learn that most of the barreling is done on the mainland. Only a couple of the distilleries actually age the whisky on site, and none of them bottle on site. They are sent to a bottling facility where the master blender goes to work determining which barrels are ready to be bottled and making sure the end result is consistent. Many of the distilleries are owned by larger, multi-national companies that control the marketing and take a large amount of their product and sell it to blended whisky makers. It was funny to learn that they send their clear liquid to the main land for 10-20 years, then bottles of it are shipped back for serving at the distilleries. Nonetheless, I got to sample lots of great whisky and learn a lot about the process.

Brilliant post.

I'd love to hear your specific reactions to / reflections on the various distilleries you visited.

Would also to know which distillery/ies the photos came from.

queequeg's_steak wrote:Brilliant post.

I can only agree! I learned more about Scotch Whisky making in the 10 minutes it took me to read your post, turkob, than I've ever known. Truly great stuff!

Thank you for taking the time and sharing.

turkob wrote:I was surprised to learn that most of the barreling is done on the mainland. Only a couple of the distilleries actually age the whisky on site, and none of them bottle on site. They are sent to a bottling facility where the master blender goes to work determining which barrels are ready to be bottled and making sure the end result is consistent. Many of the distilleries are owned by larger, multi-national companies that control the marketing and take a large amount of their product and sell it to blended whisky makers. It was funny to learn that they send their clear liquid to the main land for 10-20 years, then bottles of it are shipped back for serving at the distilleries. Nonetheless, I got to sample lots of great whisky and learn a lot about the process.

Hi,

This was a wonderful post and brings back really nice memories. I was not aware of the corporate bottling procedures. When we were there, we learned that very few distillers malt their own barley with most being handled by major corporations. Self malting is not uncommon among the island distillers.

Thanks,

Tim

Bridgestone wrote:

queequeg's_steak wrote:Brilliant post.

I can only agree! I learned more about Scotch Whisky making in the 10 minutes it took me to read your post, turkob, than I've ever known. Truly great stuff!

Thank you for taking the time and sharing.

I couldn't agree more. Thanks, turkob, for the truly enriching post.

=R=

Most of the pictures were from Bowmore, though a couple were from other distilleries where I got better shots.

It is my understanding that a majority of distilleries buy their malts and even those that malt on-site purchase a significant percentage of their malt from a maltster.

Here's a rundown of the distilleries I visited and my impressions:

Bowmore
They're located in the capital of the island, though that's not saying much since there were maybe 20 buildings total. We opted for the craftsman tour which is a private tour and very thorough. The tour is given by a tour guide who is very knowledgeable. The tour is about 90 minutes long and includes drinking whisky straight from the barrel. This was the only tour that included this, and though it was cool to do, I don't think it added much to my appreciation of whisky, it was more of a novelty.

At the end of the tour they set you up in a recently renovated tasting room with their full line of standard scotches, 12 in all, including a 25 year. Bowmore offered a much wider range of options than the other distilleries, though honestly nothing really stood out to me. We had to get to another tasting so we couldn't sit around and try everything, but it was a good place to really compare the impact of different barrels and aging on a fairly neutral malt. It was also the priciest tour by a pretty wide margin at 40 pounds, so given that we saw all the same stuff at the other distilleries (minus the tasting straight from the barrel), I'd say it wasn't a very good value. I also learned that many scotches are made exclusively for "travel retail" which means duty free shops at airports. This explains why I see things at duty free I've never heard of. Something to look out for in the future.

Bunnahabhain
This is the prettiest distillery as it is located across the Sound of Islay from the Isle of Jura. The views alone are worth the trip up to the north of the island. We scheduled the VIP tour there which includes a tour from the distillery manager. What the tour lacked in polish it more than made up for in depth. The distillery manager could tell that I was interested in the technical details and he really let me in on the details of the process. This included learning how to control the stills, considering the tides when determining when to dump waste into the sound, and legal issues regarding the ammonia content of their waste product. This is a total spirit geek's tour, with limited appeal for people just interested in tasting some scotch.

The tour ended in their modest tasting room where the distillery manager made fun of the large groups of Swedes that come by the bus load and get absolutely tanked on the samples. He served us the full Bunnahabhain line including the 12, 18, 25 and the peated. They're the least peaty scotch on the Island, and only started making a peated to include in their blend called the Black Bottle which is a blend of different Islay malts. They're credited with being one of the first distilleries to feature non-chill filtered scotches which lends body and richer flavors.

Lagavulin
There are three distilleries very close together at the south of the island, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, and Laphroaig. It's common to walk between them and stay in Port Ellen for the night. They are also known for creating the peatiest scotches in all of Scotland. Lagavulin only offers a single tour option, but it was pretty thorough and ended with by far the most generous tasting. We had the tour to ourselves though I suspect it can get pretty crowded during peak season.

Lagavulin is owned by Diageo which also owns Caol Ila, though Caol Ila was closed for renovations when we visited. They send most of their base spirit to the mainland where Diageo has large barrel storage facilities. Lagavulin is noteworthy in that their base scotch is a 16 year though it maintains its smokey character whereas many older scotches lose it. They left us with 8 bottles, 4 from Caol Ila, 4 from Lagavulin, which included the Caol Ila 25 and the Distillers Edition from Lagavulin. I have to believe this isn't common practice with a larger group. While we were sitting in the tasting room sampling the different options, the distillery manager stopped by to chat with us. They may be owned by a multi-national corporation, but the experience was decidedly mom-and-pop.

Ardbeg
We were getting pretty burned out on distillery tours so when we learned that our tour at Ardbeg was to be a part of a 30 person Swedish tour group, we opted out. The Swedes love their scotch! Instead we got lunch at their restaurant, the only distillery on the island with a restaurant as far as I know. While we sat there, the waitress brought us samples of all their base offerings including the 10 year (a peat lover's dream), Corryvecken, Uigedail, and the Alligator. I got the sense that after you've seen a couple distilleries on the island, you can probably skip the rest and just stop by for ad hoc tastings and get some info from the people that work there. I was generally impressed by the level of knowledge from all the distillery workers, it far exceeded what I saw in Kentucky.

Laphroaig
In a lot of ways this was the most corporate feeling tour of the bunch. The basic tour includes a tour of the distillery including the malt house (we saw this only at Bowmore and Laphroiag). At the end they offer a single sample and pressure you to join their Friends of Laphroaig club which includes a plot of land in the field next to the distillery and a glass of whisky every time of you visit the distillery.

However, Laphroaig was also the only distillery to offer a premium tasting including some rare drams. This is called the Johnston's Choice tasting and requires advance booking. They serve you four drams, though strangely one of them was their basic 10 year. The other 3, though, were pretty rare. They served us a distillers edition 25 year and 30 year and a special bottling from the Islay Whisky Festival in 2008. The 25 and 30 year bottles both retail at over 400 dollars whereas the special bottling is a collector's item, no longer available for purchase at retail. Once again, they left us with the bottles and told us to help ourselves. Before that though, they had an employee discuss the whiskies with us and make observations of what to taste for. From a scotch appreciation standpoint this was the most informative part of the trip, and at 15 pounds it was totally worth it.

Turkob, thanks for reminding me to read this yesterday! What an amazing post, it's like Mr. Rogers for adults. Very well written, educational and thorough!

Wow, totally jealous. My three favorite whiskys: lagavulin, laphroaig and bowmore.
Great write-up, thx