Just arrived at Glasgow airport.
Who better to advertise at the Airport than the Royal Bank of Scotland - God knows they've been on a flyer these last few months!
Thistle Hotel Front Desk where we had our breakfast just after arrival in Glasgow. We also stayed here our last night.
Pedestrian Mall on Sauchiehall.
Had a coffee crunch ice cream here the last day but my luggage was too overweight to bring back any of their famous toffee.
Botanical Garden
Welcome to Auchentoshan Distillery
Our Guide Morag Brodie and Companions of the Quaich leader Ed Patrick lead the way
Gleaming mixers inside the mash tun
Copper topped mash tun. Think it's a Duracell?
Describing how the barley is malted (wooden shiels for turning barley in front)
Washback filled with wort
The wort is brewing
A lamp glass shaped still.
Distiller attending to the cut on the spirit safe
Triple distillation (Wash still, Intermediate still and Spirit still)
The glorious warehouse. Can you smell the “Angel's Share”(2% annual evaporation)?
Ahhhh! the tasting room - I'm in heaven!
Auchentoshan sounds like it could be Yiddish for 'up your tush' - maybe 'up yer kilt?'
The Bowmore on the lower right is more my style.
Ian McCallum, master Distiller of Auchentoshan and Morrison Bowmore
Trying some 12 yr. old.
Would you like to go down to the warehouse again? Duhhhh!
Put some whiskey on your palm and rub it briskly and smell - better than a fine cologne!
After banging out the bung, showing us how to use a valinch to withdraw a sample
And, the requisite tasting! A 1998 - cask strength of course.
Light and fruity - the whisky, I mean, not Ian!
Slainte Mhor!
Paula banging the bung to bottle her own. Allen is waiting his turn.
She's done this before!
Finger over the top hole of the valinch...
...and let go so the whisky flows into the bottle.
Ed's an old hand at this...
Right after this I swear I saw him licking the cask!
The last time I saw Ed in this position he was preparing to skewer the haggis at a Burns dinner.
I can't believe all the rhododendrons in gardens and everywhere along the roadside.
On our way back up to the tasting room
Ed thanks Ian for his hospitality (we certainly imbibed many drams).
Slainte!
Drew and Morag patiently waiting for us to stagger back on the bus. Not everyone's used to drinking cask strength.
A view of Loch Lomond on our way up to Inverary (remember to pronounce 'Inverara')
A quick stop along the way (and I can't remember why although a few people went to a food truck and got Scottish bacon sandwiches that smelled great.)
Drew, our driver, and Morag waiting by the bus
A white-flowered rowan tree (or mountain ash although it's not a member of the ash family but the rosaceae sorbus, relatives of the rose, apple and hawthorn).
Did we have good weather or what? Overlooking Loch Fyne from in front of the Argyll Hotel in Inverary.
What a beautiful sky!
Locals fishing off the pier.
Walking about Inverary before dinner - a fine end to an amazing first day!
Early the next morning out my hotel room window - a bit misty before sun-up.
Sentry box on a distant hill at the entrance to the town
Mist rolling in along the valley.
Still waters
Sun rising over the distant hills
War memorial flattered by the rising sun.
You can see the rhodos grow like weeds along the roadway past the bridge.
picturesque bridge
Our hotel
..continuing on along the street.
Ken snaps a pic of the Loch.
The woolen shop beside the hotel.
Nice house along the road to the ferry
More rhodos
Our ferry to the Isle of Islay at Kennacraig dock.
On the ferry navigating westward on West Loch Tarbert with the Isle of Gigha in the distance at centre
Looking north west to the Isle of Jura
Zoomed in on the Paps of Jura
Islay in the distance
passing Gigha (looking to the south)
Zoomed in to the south of Gigha, the tiny Cara Island.
closing in on Islay
Peter and Shirley
The south east coast of Islay
Zoomed in on Ardbeg Distillery ...
... then Lagavulin...
approaching the entrance to Port Ellen harbour
Looking back at Ardbeg and Lagavulin
And now a shot of Laphroaig (see the smoke emanating from the pagodas)
Carol, Ted, Paula, Ken, Provan, Peter and Bernadette
Zoomed in on Port Ellen maltings (unfortunately all that is left of my favourite distillery)
Beautiful Port Ellen harbour
Coming in for the landing
Beside us they were loading a barge with Port Ellen malted barley
Our room in Bowmore's Distillery Cottage
Simple but clean
View of the town of Bowmore from the bathroom window...
...and from our bedroom as well
Looking down the street towards the harbour
Entrance to the distillery
Picture of Fair Day in 1832 with a procession down the main street of Bowmore
Our distillery guide
That's us in the window reflection.
Hearing about malting the barley (I pulled a plough through the barley, bribed with the promise of an extra dram)
I'd done the virtual tour of Bowmore on the net years ago, but there's nothing like the real thing!
The rest of the reprobates on our part of the tour!
Stoking the peat to dry and smoke the barley
Great peat reek and a warm glow!
The dried peat
Old style...but with some newer technology
Ahhh! The infamous and ubiquitous Porteus mill
Grinding the grist and sending it to hoppers ready to go to the mash tun for mashing
Explaining the process
The human element
Water added to the grist and heated in the mash tun
A large arm stirs the wort.
Now to the next stage - the washbacks
Add yeast and it brews up a storm!
On to the pot stills - gleaming copper!
Separating the Foreshots (Head) from the the Cut (Heart) and the Feints (Tail) at the Spirit Safe. The Cut gives you the middle which is not too strong and not too rough. It's Goldilocks approved.
Uisge beatha - the water of life!
Shirley and Alex (seen through the window) down below
The stills
Pauline and Ed chatting up a long time employee
The pagoda chimneys.
Some vauable casks.
In the presence of royalty
Dinner at Brigend Inn. On the left, Doug, Jeanette, and Carol. On the right, Allen, Pauline, Patrick, Paula and Ted.
From left clockwise, Provan, Linda, Debbie, Bernadette, Ken, Brian R. and David.
From left clockwise, Peter, Gordon, Jean, Anne, Ed, Bob, Ross and Shirley B..
Clockwise from left, Nedra, Drew, Shirley M. (hidden), Daphne, Grant, Sue, John, Donna, Fred, Alex, Morag and Gary.
The Bowmore sea wall jutting into Loch Indaal (the 360 degree panoramic view of this scene was my screensaver for years - finally I'm here!)
Brian, out for his morning walk, looking just a little salty.
Just past the distillery looking up at the island's only high school
Just up the street we see a Star of David over a doorway, but had no idea what the 'R.A. Chapter' is.
Whatever it is, doubtful we'll find a morning minyan here. (Actually I've since discovered it stands for (Supreme Grand) 'Royal Arch', a branch of the Freemason Lodge.
Brian tries some spirited davening (praying) just for effect
Just up the street, the famous round church (so the Devil can't hide in the corner - or maybe the congregants at collection time).
From here it may be long distance to God
Brian tries anyway
Beautiful picturesque homes (This is our Distillery House Cottage)
The door doesn't lock but nae bother!
Quite an array of chimney pots around town
Nice view across the street
On our way up to Bunnahabhain Distillery - looking across the Sound of Islay (Caol Isla) at the Isle of Jura
The Paps of Jura - breast shaped mountains that Morag says comes from the Gaelic word for priest - I dunno, I prefer breasts, but that's just me!
Looking down on Bunnahabhain (Boy, Drew sure displayed his driving prowess getting our bus down that narrow road!)
Have you ever been to sea, Billy?
Looks like an old armoury.
Bernadette, Gordon and Dave
Our nineteen year old guide was ambitious with a good sense of humour - he expects to be manager in five years!
Notice the raking mechanism for stirring the wort
Gordon and Gary
They don't seem to worry about polishing the copper stills at Bunnahabhain
Nice head in the washback!
Outside on the craggy rock just north of the distillery I saw very old, gnarled, bonsai-like oaks...
...some heather (you can see the one at the bottom in bloom)...
Fuschia
This looks like a low growing juniper.
A view of Jura from the distillery
Various wildflowers.
Casks are sprayed periodically to keep the wood from shrinking and falling apart (you can see sprinkler heads above the casks on the left)
View from the pier.
The Paps off the headland across the Sound of Islay
At the Caol Ila distillery just in time to see the malted barley being delivered
A jellyfish just off the pier...
there he goes....
whooshing away...
Tata for now!
Beautiful rhodos on the hillside of the distillery
A close-up of the Paps of Jura from the front of the distillery - obvously volcanic mountains.
A three-master passing by
Caol Ila is not one of those 'cute wee housie' distlleries - it's a full on factory with no apologies.
Our guide Linda
Beautiful copperlined mashtun (although there are those who say the copper has nil effect on the product at this point so they might as well use stainless steel)
Sparkling stills, plain and fairly tall with semi-goosenecked lyne pipes for a medium weighted whiskey
The best view from any stillroom in Scotland - the Sound of Islay and the Paps of Jura
Immense condensers hooked up to the lyne arm
Another view of Jura from the still room
The cut having finished, the inferior feints are channelled back for re-distillation
Whisky flows from the stills to the spirit receiver and then on for filling to casks.
For a girl who's not much of a drinker, Nedra tries out the two-fisted technique!
On our way back to Bowmore for an afternoon break
The gardens were small but well maintained.
Bob, Ross and I decide to stop off at the Bowmore Hotel for an afternoon coffee on the patio deck.
View out the hotel window
View across Loch Indaal
A little fuzzy but that's Bruichladdich Distillery across and to the south on the other side of Loch Indaal near the town of Port Charlotte
Local peat cutters have cut their peat and piled it up to dry in the sun over the summer to be used to stoke the fire over the cold winter.
We left Bowmore early to get a head start on three distilleries today - the three sisters on the south-east shore - Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Laphroaig. My special day - bring on the peat and smoke!
The Mull of Oa (pronounced Oh)
A West Highland cow (pronounced west heeland coo)
Although now pedigreed, Morag tells us these animals are the descendants of a cross of a dark-haired Mongolian Yak with the Roman Auroch
They have even now been bred with Charolais to get an almost palomino colour.
Ko bos!
Why the long face?
My late father-in-law insisted that my long red hair and beard from the sixties made him think I was descended from this clan.
These magnificent beasts fetch a very high price!
A shot from the bus of the ferry going around the islands having just left Port Ellen harbour.
On its way to Kennacraig.
The bus coming into Port Ellen just before making the turn east to the road to the distilleries.
The lovely Rachel, a science student working here for the summer, is our guide today.
Finally a grist mill other than Porteus - a Robert Boby! (sounds rather redundant, doesn't it?)
Mixing the grist with water to make the wort.
Interesting wall plates to through-bolt the wall supports - I'd say this might make Ardbeg a kosher whisky!
Shorter stills with a pinched waist (lamp glass style) and swan-necked lyne arm makes for a heavier whisky. (Don't we know it!)
Steel vat where the low wine waits for distillation and feints for re-distillation.
The top of this still was recently replaced.
From the pier
Filling the casks.
The machine automatically measures out the right quantity...
...minus a bit that Gary's taking out on his finger for sampling!
Ready to roll, so to speak!
Tools of the trade - the blue auger on the right is used to remove the old bung from the refill cask and the bung hammer on the left is to hammer in the new bung.
The next cask is being filled.
Bob (Robbie) Robertson bangs in the new poplar bung.
My wife likes pictures of interesting doors.
What a warehouse!
With the distillery manager, tasting some cask strength - probably over 60% ABV
It'll put hair on your chest!
The men would probably prefer some more hair on their heads!
Cheers! Dave and Bernadette.
The gentle ladies take a wee sip.
Before lunch, we tasted a 64% low-peated Blasda, the 59% heavily-peated Supernova and the 57% more balanced Uigeadail (named after the Loch that supplies the water for the whisky)
The grounds are very well maintained.
An old still makes an interesting garden ornament.
Grant wants a swig!
The wall plates on this building are definitely not Jewish. There goes the kosher whisky theory!
A is for Ardbeg.
And now for my favourite operating Islay distillery!
From across the road you can see the water flowing down the burn from Sholum Loch. (that sounds a bit Jewish as well - Sholum Aleichem!)
The brown water comes by burn (stream) and sluice and lends a bit of peaty taste even before the malted barley does its magic.
A nice view of the burn water making its way to the distillery.
A not-so-pretty view of the water as it's gate and valve controlled for its entry to the distillery.
Lagavulin (meaning mill hollow) sits behind the ruins of Dunyvaig castle, the sea fort of the Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles, destroyed in 1615 under orders from the English King James IV.
What's left of Dunyvaig Castle
Our guide
The dried peat (for display purposes only as they use malted barley from the Port Ellen maltings)
Porteus mill, of course! (they make them so well they went out of business!)
The warehouses.
The washbacks (unusually made with Canadian larch instead of the more common Oregon pine)
Talk about head! The froth was actually flying out of this washback!
Relatively squat plain style stills with a deep angle swan-neck lyne arm yield a very robust whisky. That's my kind!
It's squat, all right. The wash still on the right looks like Jabba The Hut!
Check out the deep swan-neck lyne arm
The guide's very excited about the product. (as am I)
Tombstone of one of the Johnston family who started Lagavulin. Angus' body made it for honoured burial on Texa Island but the stone did not as it fell off the boat into the water. Surperstition made the locals leave it where it lay in the water until many years later when the distillery found it and mounted it on the wall. Angus died in 1836 over 80 years old which was very good for those days - must be the whisky!
Nice chimney.
Bell (with noisome clapper now removed) on Goat's Hill beside Lagavulin, place of a former kirk (church).
Azaleas, roses and heather on distillery grounds.
Sundial in garden near Lagavulin entrance. It's getting late. Best off to our last stop, Laphroaig.
And now, the last of the three sisters.
Up to the Office first off, to register our names as Friends of Laphroaig (gets you a free miniature bottle on your way out!)
Down by the bay
A swan in the bay.
There's a swan neck of a different kind!
Big John MacDonald Guest descended from Clan Donald
There he stands - our latter-day Lord of The Isles!
That smoke emanatng from the pagoda chimney explains how Laphroaig really carries the peat reek!
There's a plough like the one I schlepped around Bowmore's malt floor.
Here's the malted barley on the floor of the kiln being dried by the peat smoke from the furnace below. What a heavenly aroma!
A shot from the kiln furnace room out through the door to the bay (this one's for my wife too)
Peat smoking in the kiln furnace.
Stainless steel mash tun
Adding water to the grist.
The computer as well as the human element.
What magnificent stills! Again, short and stout with a lamp glass shape (allowing a bit more reflux) so we know it's going to produce a heavy whisky.
Good sized condensers at the end of the lyne arms.
Nothing prettier than polished brass and copper!
Another shiny Spirit Safe.
On our way to the tasting room.
How time flies when you're having fun (and getting ready for a dram!)
The tasting room is a mini museum. We sample their 10 yr. old single malt and take a mini bottle home with our Friends of Laphroaig official certificate.
Tools of the trade.
Laphroaig history-by-cask.
On to Port Ellen for dinner. Three distilleries makes a guy work up an appetite!
Lovely farm from the bus as we head back to the Bowmore Cottages for the night.
Thursday morning - another beautiful day on Islay as we prepare for our last island distillery, Bruichladdich and the promise of more fun from the renowned charmer and storyteller, Jim McEwan.
Bruichladdich is located near Port Charlotte on the Rhinns which forms the peninsula that is the west side of Loch Indaal.
He probably died happy!
Morag was telling us they produce a high alcohol quadruple distilled spirit (X4 - bottled at 50% ABV but can be had from the cask closer to 85-90%) and as a stunt Jim had a racecar painted up with Bruichladdich colours and successfully ran it on the stuff! What a saavy marketer and showman!
Nice new colours and branding to a historied distillery
There's Jim McEwan come to greet us!
He shows us they are currently bottling Octomore (very heavily peated - even more than Supernova) in a flashy black bottle.
They're also working on a fairly peaty Port Charlotte (after the town and a long lost distillery).
Stories about the local farmers and how he gets them to talk with him a lot more after they've given them a few drams.
I say! Another Robert Boby mill.
An open mash tun that Jim jokingly told some Japanese tourists they use for a hot tub in the winter and they believed him!
As you can see, a taller plain still will put out a lighter whisky from the three sisters across the island.
Their next phase is to produce a more organic (rather than orgasmic) whisky. They pay local farmers to grow the barley and sell them back the draff for cattle feed and pot ale for soil amendment. Everything will be done for the equal benefit of the local community and the distillery with almost no waste whatsoever. The goal is to attain the closest thing possible to a symbiotic relationship.
If anyone can do it, it's Jim. Five minutes with the man and you know how passionate he is about whisky and the Isle of Islay!
Time for a sample of new-made spirit - probably about 68%! I'm up for it and find it tastes similar to homemade grappa with a grassy background and fiery face, although Jim's none too pleased with the comparison.
Uisge beatha just the way God made it!
I'm still a sucker for shiny metal - like a crow!
Spotted this sport version of the Smart car in the parking lot. Unfortunately no longer available.
Cute little buggar!
Distillery houses.
Excavating for a new building they struck a spring which promises to make their source of water much cleaner and closer!
Ahhh! The casks and the warehouse!
No wonder costs are escalating so much. This once-used Oloroso Pedro Jimenez sherry cask from Fernando Castillo now costs over 500 pounds!
Jim showed us some casks he just got in for Murray McDavid (a special bottling firm headed up by Mark Reynier now owned by Bruichladdich) which he will be finishing for them.
One batch was 1999 Laphroaig in tired old casks (probably fourth fill) which Jim planned to finish in special Rothschilds Chateau Lafitte wine casks which should do wonders to balance the peat and smoke.
The other casks got him much more excited as this was an example of personal pride. They were 15 yr. old Bowmore whisky which Jim had himself laid down when he was master blender and manager at Bowmore.
I made this whisky!
They plan to finish these ten casks in the special Fernando Castillo Oloroso sherry casks and bottle it as a special sherry finish Bowmore. Jim let us sample it as is from the bourbon casks and it was delicious...
...but I will definitely keep my eyes open for a Murray McDavid special finish Bowmore in a few years!
Always the showman, Jim jumped up on a couple of barrels like a Hebridean Ben Hur and told us of an 8yr. old Bruichladdich that has been finished for two years in a Sauterne cask. After tasting, it was clear that the wine cask had done its job as the edges were all smoothed over.
He then showed us some five year old malt that was being draind into their tank to be recasked and sent off to the blenders.
It had a rich reddy-brown hue.
Liquid amber!
He then demonstrated how the whisky brokers get young spirit from all the distilleries, some of which goes to private bottlers and some for blending.
It's traded by a value ratio - let's say one Bruichladdich is worth three Stathislas.
We learned a lot today.
Some very good looking casks.
Back down to the gift shop for a 'tich o' the Laddie'.
Paula filling a special festival bottle.
Good to the last drap!
Jim signing bottles (and hats too, eh Ken!)
Carol snaps a pic while Paula cradles her special bottle.
Ed thanks Jim for treating us so well.
Shirley needs a little clarification, John's still tasting, looks like Ed's stocking up.
Nifty planter outside the distillery.
So long Bruichladdich! It was great fun!
Looking at the pier across from the distillery.
Looking across Loch Indaal to the town of Bowmore.
I believe we're all feeling the effects of all that cask strength sampling as Jim was very hospitable.
Let's head down to Portnahaven for lunch.
Interesting house along the way.
A lighthouse.
A seal soaking up the sun at Portnahaven
Smile for the camera!
Lunch at a pub style restaurant.
Slainte! I had the scallops and some haggis in whisky cream with a Black Rock ale - sooooooooo good!
A jolly group.
A calico behind the restaurant.
Some houses up the hill behind the restaurant. The various chimney pots still intrigue me.
A look across the harbour.
A view to the south west towards the mouth of the harbour.
We don't need a light on such a sunny day!
On the way back we see some more blonde coloured Highland cattle, probably bred with Charolais.
Why it's Fluffy McDuffy!
Pretty farmhouse along the way.
A wild iris along the roadside.
Some cattle take it easy with the Mull of Oa in the background.
More resplendent roadside rhodos!
Next morning - a shot to the north from the Bowmore seawall.
And another shot to the south, of the distillery.
More early morning Bowmore.
A fine cirrus sky over the round church.
Another lovely doorway. (to our Distillery Cottage)
The steam coming from the sewer grate smells so richly of malt - probably the water after heating the community pool water heads to the sea.
Unfortunately it's time to leave Islay - here comes our ferry.
Looking back towards the Port Ellen maltings.
Time to board!
After four days on Islay, I'm very tempted.
On the way back up to Inverary we pass the harbour of Tarbert at the top of the Mull of Kintyre. And that's the end of Part A
