::: Islay whisky news ::.

This page will be regularly updated with interesting news and articles on Islay whiskies.

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Published 6 December 2011. Author: Eric Asimov

Tasting whiskies can be a clinical, prosaic task, nosing and assessing, jotting notes, reconsidering, lips compressed in concentration, brow furrowed. Yet, as the spirits panel tasted 20 single malts from Islay, we reminded ourselves to step back a moment, to contemplate with no small amount of awe the magic of what was in the glass. Islay demands a sense of wonder.

I've never visited Islay, that island off Scotland's western coast with the evocative pronunciation EYE-lah. But sipping a good Islay single malt, with its astounding range of complex expressions, transports you to an Islay that seems as mythical as it is real. It's a world unscarred by modernity's claws, an island of fog, smoke, brine and mystery, where ancient distilleries, after years of throbbing production, go dark when demand wanes. There they sit, abandoned on the green and craggy landscape, their distinctive pagoda roofs intact, yet silent like phantom freighters.

Some remain that way, their sites revered like ancient stone circles by whisky lovers. For others comes reincarnation when market conditions change again. The ghostly cobwebs are cleared away, the pot stills rejuvenated, and once more they will yield the precious distilled vapors of malted barley, peat, yeast, crystalline water and air. If it seems odd to consider air an ingredient, you have to stick your nose in a glass of Islay single malt. Along with all the other components, a savory whiff of salty sea breeze is unmistakable.

Full article here (including tasting notes)

Published 14 June 2011. Author: Melissa Mahony

Scotland's Bruichladdich Distillery is hot on the scent of a whisky industry with a cleaner finish. The company says its operations on the Isle of Islay now run 100 percent on methane produced on its seaside grounds.
Until recently, the 130-year-old distillery had fed its spent barley (draff), which is locally grown, to the island's cattle. But they threw their pot ale (the leftover swill of dead yeast and water) into the ocean. Transporting the pot ale to a different stretch of coast where a pipe would expel it into the Sound of Islay was pricey. The yearly cost was around $30,000. But now that pot ale helps with the electricity bills, as feedstock for the distillery's new anaerobic digester. Under oxygen-free conditions, microorganisms within the digester break down the organic waste product and convert it to methane, which is then burned for power.

Full article here

20 - 29 May 2011

Location: the Isle of Islay

An annual celebration of both malt and music.

Website: Feis Ile - the Islay Festival of Malt and Music

Published 20 October 2010. Author: Simeon Goldstein

Whisky brand Bowmore has launched a limited-edition Single Malt in a hand-blown bottle that retails at £6,500. The Islay firm has produced only 53 unique bottles of Bowmore 40 Years Old that are inspired by the islands coastline. Scottish glass-blowers Brodie Nairn and Nichola Burns created the hand-blown bottles that are sculpted using molten glass and stones collected from the Islay shore so that no two bottles are the same. Hamilton and Inches, a Scottish jeweller and a warrant holder added the finishing touches to the bottle with a hand-engraved solid silver collar that adorns each bottle. The bottle is presented on a beautifully polished slab of natural slate providing a fitting plinth to display the bottle at its best.
Bowmore has also launched 402 bottles of Bowmore 1981 that sells at £270 a bottle. Bowmore 1981 is packaged in a wooden gift box with a ‘weather-beaten’ brown leather strap and copper buckle, each bottle is also accompanied by a hand-signed and numbered certificate by the distillery manager.

Full article here

Published 10 June 2010. Author: Carol Emmas

The Friends of Laphroaig, an on and off-line community has shown the strength of its marketing tool by reaching 400,000 members worldwide. First established in 1994, its membership now includes members from 161 countries. Friends are each given a square foot of land on Islay and invited to the distillery to collect their rent - a dram of Laphroaig. They are kept informed with regular newsletters from distillery manager John Campbell, who ensures they are the first to know about new bottlings and events and have exclusive access to special Laphroaig Cáirdeas editions, Cáirdeas meaning 'friends' in Gaelic.

Full article here

Published 25 May 2010. Author: forargyll.com

The Islay Whisky Festival 2010 saw the inaugural bottling at the Bruichladdich Distillery of an Islay single malt made entirely from Islay grown barley – the first such bottling since the early part of the last century. Chalice barley, harvested in September 2004, was grown less than 1 mile from the distillery on the ideally exposed, south-east facing slopes of Kentraw, overlooking Loch Indaal. The pebble-rich soil, consisting of raised marine deposits, had not been cultivated for at least a decade so was naturally fertile. The whisky was distilled three months later, matured for six years in refill sherry butts, before hand-bottling by visitors to the distillery last Sunday. This cask-strength bottling (57% ABV), part of the Bruichladdich ‘Valinch’ series, can only be purchased at the distillery – in person.

Full article here

Further information on the Valinch whisky series can be found at the Bruichladdich website here: Bruichladdich Valinch whisky

22 - 30 May 2010

Location: the Isle of Islay

An annual celebration of both malt and music.

Website: Feis Ile - the Islay Festival of Malt and Music

Published 26 February 2010. Author: Whisky Magazine

World’s Best Single Malt Whisky: Ardbeg Corryvreckan. The competition, open to proprietary bottlings only, is chaired by Dave Broom, international whisky expert. Winners progressed through three rounds of blind tastings to emerge as the victors in their categories.

Full article here

Published 18 February 2010. Author: Kevin McLean

If your image of Scotland is that of loyalty mixed with fierce independence, then it is Bruichladdich distillery that best embodies that image today. In a country where tradition reigns supreme, Scotland’s national drink changed little in the 20th century. But in 2000, this old mothballed distillery (pronounced brook-laddie) was resurrected and a new era was ushered in. Founded in 1881, Bruichladdich opened and closed its doors a couple of times before falling into the hands of a multinational corporation that slammed the distillery doors shut in 1994, with no intention of reopening. But on December 19, 2000 a small group of investors led by Mark Reynier bought the defunct whisky maker on the westernmost point of Islay — the distillery’s luck was about to change. The new owners had a vision, to produce an Islay whisky managed by the people of Islay. The current distilleries on the island were run mostly by foreign interests, employing minimal people to oversee a predominantly mechanical process. Bruichladdich, however, currently employs 40 people and the distillery operates much as it did when it first opened in 1881 (with a few notable exceptions such as the webcams that allow fans to watch their favourite whisky being made).

Full article here

Published 16 February 2010. Author: Rory Reynolds

The website of one of Scotland’s top distilleries crashed after it was bombarded by a horde of whisky fans. Staff at the Ardbeg distillery on Islay had to man the phones after 25,000 of its club members crashed the online shop in an attempt to buy a bottle of its latest release – Rollercoaster. The customers belonged to the Ardbeg ‘committee’, club members who have supported the distillery since it was revived in the 1990s. Hamish Torrie, brand director at Ardbeg, said: “We were quite overwhelmed. The committee has some 50,000 members and about 25,000 of them were trying to get onto the website all at once. “We were expecting quite a few but it was a bit of a tsunami – we only have 15,000 bottles. “The website wasn’t down but it was frozen. We’ve got orders for around 5,000 already, and we would have sold all 15,000 if the website had have held out.

Full article here

Published 14 February 2010. Author: Ian McConnell

Morrison Bowmore Distillers has achieved a 12% hike in sales of its flagship Islay single malt, despite the global economic downturn. Japanese parent company Suntory has revealed to The Herald that almost two million bottles were sold in 2009. This jump was achieved against the backdrop of what Suntory estimates was a flat market for the single malt category last year and amid tougher times for distillers attempting to sell to a recession-struck US market.

Full article here

Published 3 February 2010. Author: Cara Sulieman

When a tiny Hebridean distillery needed to bring in more equipment to meet rising demand, they ditched plans to buy new state of the art machinery and decided to resurrect a 130-year-old still, thought to be the oldest in the world. Islay distillers Bruichladdich are almost ready to begin conjuring new whiskies with the still used when the original factory opened in 1881. The company have also brought in a second still – dubbed Ugly Betty by staff – that they rescued from the closed-down Allied Distillers, near Dumbarton. Distillery boss Mark Reynier said that they were both unique and would allow them to “play” with their spirits.

Full article here

Published 17 January 2010. Author: Jonathan Leake

A Scottish distillery is to launch a pioneering scheme to turn waste sludge from whisky production into green energy. The Bruichladdich distillery on Islay is to build an anaerobic digester next month to convert thousands of tons of yeasty waste into methane gas, which will be burned to make electricity. Seven other distilleries on the island — Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Bowmore, Caol Ila, Bunnahabhain and Kilchoman — are understood to be considering similar schemes. If the project proves a success, much of the island’s electricity could be generated by its distilleries. There may even be gas left over for methane-powered vehicles. “We are going to install two anaerobic digesters on our site. In theory, it could meet all our power needs,” said Mark Reynier, the owner of Bruichladdich. Tons of waste from the distilleries are pumped into the sea each week via a pipeline to the Sound of Islay. Anaerobic digesters, in which bacteria break down the organic waste to produce methane, would use up the waste and cut the distillers’ carbon footprint by supplying up to 80% of the energy needed for whisky production Bruichladdich spends £20,000 a year on disposing of its waste.

Full article here

Published 22 November 2009. Author: Cara Sulieman

In an attempt to stop cheap imitations from tricking people into buying what they think is the real McCoy, rules on labelling have been stepped up. Only whisky that has been bottled in Scotland will be allowed to carry the phrase “Scotch whisky” and it must be clear whether the water of life is a single malt or blend. And a distillery name can only be used if the whisky was distilled there.

Full article here

Published 10 November 2008. Author: heraldscotland staff

A Scottish single malt was today awarded the title of World Whisky of the Year by a distinguished guide. Ardbeg Uigeadail was given the accolade in the Whisky Bible 2009. The honour makes it a double for the Ardbeg distillery on the island of Islay, which scooped the same title last year for Ardbeg Ten Years Old. Whisky authority Jim Murray, the guide's author, tasted 1,500 whiskies over the past year before reaching his decision. Ardbeg Uigeadail received 97.5 points out of 100, the highest rating ever awarded by Mr Murray. He described the tipple as being "mind-bogglingly complex" and said tasting it was "one of the great moments in my whisky life". The expert said in the guide: "From the utter silky brilliance of the delivery to the multi-layered middle, this simply oozes complexity, and on a level only a handful of distilleries in the world can even dream of reaching."

Full article here

Published 4 June 2005. Author: Gerard Gilbert

The sandy-haired barman on the Islay ferry tells me he's from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides. "Are there any whisky distilleries on South Uist," I ask. "No," comes his slightly rueful reply. "Islay has all the whisky." While that may not literally be true, the perception of Islay as the "whisky island" holds firm thanks to its seven world-famous single malts. Bruichladdich, Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Bowmore, Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain - names to make a malt whisky lover's heart beat faster. Single malts - the products of just one distillery - have seen a huge upswing in popularity since the doldrums of the 1980s, and there are several whisky pilgrims on this two-hour crossing from the mainland - including a Japanese couple, a trio of Swedes and a group from Spain. Drams are being sipped as we watch the coastline of Islay's sister island, Jura, glide past the windows on a beautiful evening. Andrew Jefford, in his book about the island and its whiskies, Peat, Smoke and Spirit, calls Islay "the conscience of Scotch" - its distinctive, peaty single malts are often used to add character to blended brands such as Johnny Walker, Bell's and Teacher's. About 25 million litres of whisky leave the island every year, estimates Jefford. "If the export and excise revenues of that whisky were to make their way back again," he adds, "this would be a wealthier part of Britain than Ascot or Henley."

Full article here

Published 31 December 2001. Author: Andy Symington

So, Islay malts. Which are they? The Gaelic names carry all the power and majesty of a pantheon. Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Ardbeg, Bruichladdich: the single malts of Islay are the heavyweights of the whisky world, revered across the globe for their brooding, smoky power. Ah, those ones that taste like Dettol? Yes ... and no. Some of the distilleries produce malts that are fairly light in style, but it is certainly the stronger-flavoured drams that have made Islay famous. More than 25 per cent of the island is peat, and it lends its character substantially to these whiskies – the longer the malted barley has been dried in peat fires, the more peaty the final whisky tastes. The fresh water used in the steeping and mashing also contributes to the smokiness.

Full article here

Published 8 August 1998. Author: Michael Jackson

What makes Islay whiskies great has always threatened their very existence. The windswept Atlantic, the seaweedy shore and peat-covered terrain shape the saltiest, most medicinal, phenolic of all malt whiskies. Even the juniper bushes that grow everywhere on Islay seem to get into the flavour of at least one of its malts: Caol Ila. No whiskies taste more obviously of Scotland. There are Islay malts in every famous blend from Bell's to Grouse to Johnnie Walker. A bottled blend may contain 30 or 40 malts, but typically less than 1 per cent of the whisky will come from Islay. In the years when blended Scotches attempted to appease the blander tastes of vodka-drinkers, that percentage diminished toward vanishing point. Now, we have the remarkable sight of one highly regarded blend, Black Bottle, adding to its label a guarantee that it contains malt from every one of the Islay distilleries (with clearly more than a dash of the fresh, nutty, grassy Bunnahabhain).

Full article here

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