“Don’t jump!” Ginger Willie shouted as I leaped into the peat bog. I thought he was just afraid I’d twist an ankle. His concern was that I might end up like a recent Japanese tourist – sunk up to my arm pits in the thick spongy muck. He was showing me how to dig for peat moss as part of a Craftsman’s tour of Bowmore Distillery on Islay. The tour would delight any whisky loving customer and the whole island is a place of pilgrimage for those who know their scotch.
Nicknamed the “whiskey coast”, Scotland’s west coast is tailor made for a malt whisky adventure tour. History is everywhere on this windswept, isolated part of the UK with castles dotted about and sheep grazing some of the oldest golf courses in the world. There are several misty islands where scotch is distilled here but Islay (which means Island in Gaelic) boasts the most distilleries and the peat-smokiest drams of the lot. It’s a two and a half hour boat ride from the mainland on a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry that’s most comfortable with a cafeteria and spirit bar well stocked with scotch.
All of Islay’s eight distilleries offer tours and several like Bowmore have a premium tour option that must be booked in advance as must all groups. The charming little seaside town of Bowmore is the capital of this small island with the sweet historic Harbour Inn and Bowmore Distillery Cottages for accommodation. With a resident population of only 3,600, Islay can be sleepy quiet at times. The Machrie, its classic links golf course circa 1891, stays open year round thanks to the warming golf stream but the distilleries don’t see much action from late fall until the last week of May. That’s when the Fèis Ile Festival of malt and music happens. For a week the distilleries hold open houses with special activities while ceilidhs, dances, recitals and children’s workshops are held elsewhere on the island.
I was there in March with my buddy Anita and we practically had the distilleries (and the golf course) to ourselves. At Laphroaig we learned that ancient distillery had been making whisky for over 200 years – illegally at first and then legally. Their visitor numbers have been growing annually reaching 13,000 last year, an increase of thirty per cent over the previous. They offer a “Friends of Laphroaig” program where people can own a square foot of the nearby land. Just put on the size 12 wellingtons available in the visitor’s centre, walk out to the Friends field and stake your claim with a flag. Prince Charles owns plot number one. Sean Connery is another fan and friends member. Laphroaig was also putting the finishing touches on a new whisky museum destined to open for the May festival.
At Ardbeg Distillery we were tempted by the aromas of leek and potato soup and smoked mackerel being served at their attractive Old Kiln Café and tasted our way through some of the smokiest, most peaty scotch in Scotland. Bruichladdich Distillery was special for the fact that it was Scottish owned (most are owned by large multinationals) and employee owned. They had a whole range of interesting scotches aged in former French wine barrels and the Octomore which takes your breath away with its peat levels – the highest in the world.
The Bowmore Craftsman’s Tour lead by head distiller David Turner was however the highlight. Bowmore, established in 1779 is one of Scotland’s oldest distilleries. Turner let us touch and taste everything in the place. We stood on the malt floor our feet deep in germinating barley and turned the grain with wood shovels used since the birth of scotch. We smelled the sweet scent of the malt as it underwent the conversion of starch in the grain to sugar. We walked about the kiln room, ankle deep in malted barley that was being smoked by a peat fire below and tasted the crunchy nutty smoked taste of the grain. We stoked the fire with chunks of dried peat. We went outside and tasted the cold soft fresh water from the River Laggan that passes through seven miles of peaty, mossy ground on its way to supply Bowmore with water for whisky. We sipped the sugary juice that’s hot water and crushed barley called wort and sipped again after it had fermented into a beer-like beverage around 8 per cent alcohol called wash. After it had been distilled into “new make” spirit we sniffed that rubbing it into our hands to get the malty sweet aromas. Finally we sampled a selection of aged Bowmore scotches in the tasting room including an awe inspiring 25 year old.
The crowning cap to this two and a half hour tour was of course going into the bogs to dig peat with Ginger Willie and Scott Shaw. It takes a thousand years of vegetation to make the dense damp spongy heavy earth called peat. I didn’t sink in it but I heard a body was once found from the Stone Age times. I’ll take scotch as my preservative over bog any day.