What makes Islay whiskies so distinct? Well the truth seems to be that nobody quite knows for certain, and while there are a lot of theories and ideas, consensus has yet to be achieved.

I have been told in the past that the barrel is where whisky picked up its flavours as it matured. Undoubtedly that has a great influence on a whisky and is one of the reasons there are so many special finishes and double-matured varieties out there. I tried a Kilchoman new spirit that was three months old and while it looked like vodka since it had picked up no colours from the wood, it had a distinct peaty, smoky, whiskiness about it. Clearly the wood and age aren’t the defining characteristic.

The recipe similarly affects the final effect of the whisky. All of the distilleries used malt from Port Ellen Maltings Co. to their own specifics. Laphroaig also floor malts 20% of their own malt which undoubtedly contributes to that special Laphroaig flavour. Ardbeg claims to be the most heavily peated whisky because they order their malt at 50 ppm of phenols in the peat. This seems to be somewhat open to debate though as Laphroaig said their malts are 55 ppm and supplemented with 40 ppm malt from Port Ellen. Caol Ila and Lagavulin both go for 35 ppm and Bunnahabhain uses a scarce 2 ppm. Clearly this influences the final flavour, but how much so is open to debate.

The processes and equipment used leaves a mark on the final whisky. While Ardbeg uses more heavily peated malt, Lagavulin say they achieve more with their because they do a second distillation of 10 hours compared to Ardbeg’s 5 hours. The shapes of the stills are universally accepted to shape the flavour as well, just nobody knows why or how. The goosenecks on the stills at Lagavulin point down and our tour guide espoused the virtue of the design as quickly condensing and removing the good spirit. The goosenecks at Laphroaig point upwards and similarly the tour guide claimed that made it harder for distillate to leave therefore only removing the best of the spirit.

Geography plays a part too, even on an island as small as Islay. Perhaps it is the spray of seawater at one distillery and one peat field that makes a different. The lochs where they each draw their water might have subtle geological differences that end up in the dram. Ultimately a distillery worker at Laphroaig just shrugged and said, “You could take all of our equipment, our whole distillery and move it a half mile up the road. The whisky made wouldn’t taste the same.”

We sampled quite a few different varieties and tried drams of bottles that were of a price range beyond what we would buy so it was nice to have that opportunity. Ultimately we always returned to our favourites. The bartender of Duffie’s, where we did the lion’s share of our whisky sampling, came to know us well. On the last night when I ordered a Bruichladdich 3D3 and a Lagavulin 21-year-old he remarked, “Aye. Yous er travelin’ ta peaty road tonigh!” I love that.

We picked up several of the special bottlings for the festival, but not all. Unfortunately having to pack liquids in luggage now means the weight of bottles has to be considered and balanced. We picked up bottles at Bruichladdich, Caol Ila, Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Laphroaig. We didn’t buy Bowmore’s because of weight and Bunnahabhain had priced theirs at over £200 a bottle which made it hard to justify a purchase.

I can not provide detailed tasting notes as I only sampled each one at the distillery. I’m not sure when we’ll crack open our bottles as they are probably relegated more for ’special occasions’ and deliberate tastings than for simple weekend drams.

Bruichladdich X4+1 ‘Deliverance’ Valinch

This was the only special bottle that we had to queue in advance for. Once again I have to hand it to Bruichladdich’s marketing sense for generating such a buzz about it. Allowing customers to fill their own bottles and apply their own labels was a nice touch as well as emphasising the ‘limited’ aspect of it with bottle numbers.

I’m not crazy about the name, but it’s probably because I’m an American that the name ‘Deliverance’ conjures up images of banjos and unpleasant vacations in redneck country. The X4+1 bit signifies that it is quadrupled distilled—most whiskies are double distilled with a few triple distilled—as far as I know this is the only quadruple distilled. The +1 means that it has been aged for one year. Yep, it’s very young. In fact, it’s too young to call whisky as the law requires it to be a minimum of three years old for that title. So it’s a ‘new spirit’. 

How does it taste? Well, strong for starters. It’s bottled at a hefty 66% alcohol and I didn’t have any water available for my sample. It did have some fruity, lemonade quality but we’ll see how it shapes up. 

Lagavulin 15 year old single cask

This bottle was the most expensive of the bottles we purchased at £60. It was bottled at cask strength, 52.9%, and I’ll have to look at my notes but I believe it was finished in sherry. It had the Lagavulin smokiness with a bit of sweetness on the finish. I liked it a lot and it was even better with a splash of water.

Caol Ila age unknown cask strength

The Caol Ila is deliberately age less. We were told it’s the ‘distiller’s secret’. I suspect it is heavily mixed of multiple ages. Caol Ila has used a lot of different levels of peating in their malts over the years and this probably has quite a few different ones in there. The 18-year-old is our favourite and this one lacks the smoky characteristic so prevalent in that bottle, but has a distinct fruit like finish. I liked it but I still like the 18 the best. Sadly it’s becoming increasingly rare and expensive.

Ardbeg ‘Renaissance’

The bottle proclaims ‘We’ve Arrived!’, a play on their other releases of Very Young, Still Young and Almost There. Renaissance is a cask strength, 55.9%, 10-year-old Ardbeg. I only had a small sample, but it was what I was expecting it to be and fans of Ardbeg surely won’t be disappointed. It was also one of the cheaper bottlings at £42 so I give them credit for that.

Laphroaig ‘Cairdeas’

The name is gaelic for friendship and is pronounced car-chess. The lady at Laphroaig helpfully pointed out that it is like ‘car chase’ so that made it easy to remember. At £40 it was the cheapest of all the special bottlings and it was nice to see a distillery keeping it real as it were. I was told it was mixed from some ‘over aged’ quarter cask stock and 17 yo. It’s still a Laphroaig, but seemed noticeably sweeter and buttery at the start and with a lighter flavour overall.

*PLEASE NOTE* Keywords are no longer allowed in the name field.
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