Isle of Islay – 4

There is a footpath from Port Charlotte to Bruichladdich with views over Loch Indaal. I walked past the war memorial and a photogenic church to the village where I admired the distinct aquamarine blueness of the distillery’s design that makes its branding so distinctive. This is the place that also distills the wonderful ‘The Botanist’ gin and visitors can see the Ugly Betty still modified by an engineer to capture the delicate essence of the twenty two hand-foraged Islay botanicals listed on the bottle. When I visited, the ladder that extends towards the top of the still had the nickname ‘Bruichladder’. 

From here it’s a taxi ride to the Kilchoman distillery set in lovely farming country near the west coast of the island. Kilchoman oversees the total production of their range of whiskies, from growing their own barley to bottling the whisky. The malting process is split into three key stages – steeping, germination, and kilning.

Steeping the barley for 2 days with a soaking cycle allows all the natural starches and enzymes to form. These are the two essential ingredients required to create sugar later. Temperature, moisture content, and growth are monitored over this period. After steeping, the barley is spread out on the unheated malting floor and will stay there for 4-5 days, where it will be turned every 2-4 hours while also having its moisture content and temperature checked. At this stage, the aim is to keep the barley germinating, mimicking the ideal growing conditions it would experience in the field. Outside climatic conditions can change quickly, testing the production team’s knowledge to make the necessary changes inside to keep the germination going. Once the team are happy with how the grains have germinated, the barley is moved to the kiln for the final stage of the process. There is no substitute for experience on the malting floor where it’s a true art, rather than a science, to judge when the internal conditions need to change or the germination is completed. 

Back in Port Charlotte, I caught the bus to Port Askaig, another ferry terminal where you can catch a ferry to Kennacraig or, in my case, the ferry over to the Isle of Jura known as the Feolin ferry. First though I had to visit another distillery which I could walk to, Caol Ila. 

This is part of the Johnny Walker group and I have to say the tour I went on was rather swish, meaning smart and fashionable. A lot of money has been thrown at this distillery and it is rather impressive from beginning to end. There’s no malting floor but the rest of the process is described – as it was at every tour I went on – from the mashing where the dried malt is ground into a coarse flour or grist, which is mixed with hot water in a large container called a mash tun. This tun produces a liquid called wort with which the fermentation process begins followed by the pot stills and the distillation process.