Caol Ila - the biggest whisky producer on Islay

The view from Caol Ila distillery across the Sound of Islay to the Island of Jura is so breathtaking that distillery manager, Billy Stitchell, reluctantly sits with his back to his office window to minimize distractions. In August and September, Billy saw a number of 20 feet long basking sharks in the sound and, he says,  it's not unusual to see killer whales, seals and other marine life swimming in the waters close to the biggest distillery on Islay. I suspect that he often delights in the same magnificent view from his house, perched on a hill, right above the distillery.
The 6 massive stills at Caol Ila sit behind a floor to ceiling picture window, oblivious of the jaw dropping view beyond. The distillery has been in  operation since 1846, with a couple of short mothball periods. About 90 to 95% of its vast production goes to blended whisky - mainly Johnnie Walker and Black Bottle. It has produced a lot of interesting Single Malts though, some of which I had the opportunity to sample later in Billy's tasting room, where we sat on comfy chairs and nosed a few fine drams while drinking in the view. Very nice!
When I arrived at Caol Ila, the first person I met was Hayley, a fellow Canadian, from St John, New Brunswick, who had found her way to the east coast of Islay to work at the distillery for a while, giving tours and learning as much as possible about the world of whisky, which had captivated her imagination. We chatted for a bit until Billy arrived to show me around the distillery.
Billy Stitchell is the fifth generation in his family to be involved in whisky. He has worked in the industry on Islay for 38 years, 22 of them in management. His eyes sparkle, his words are fresh, and he delights in talking about Caol Ila and its products.
When I say that Caol Ila is big, let me put it in perspective. In approximate terms, Caol Ila produces in a week what Kilchoman, Islay's smallest distillery, produces in a  year. Eight times a week a tanker, with 2 containers of 12,500 litres of whisky each, leaves the distillery and heads for the mainland. The construction of these Mundell Ltd lorries (trucks) is quite interesting. The two tanks take up the bottom part of the lorry and  a refrigerated space is on top. When the lorry returns from the mainland, the empty space is filled with goods needed on the island. According to Billy, this efficient idea was invented by Mundell, but no patent was taken out. Now, this style of lorry is used all over the world. Oops!
Still on the theme of big, Caol Ila uses 330 tonnes of malt a week, mainly from Port Ellen maltings in the south of the island. That's a lot! The distillery had a £3M upgrade last year to increase capacity. There are 8 large Oregon pine washbacks and 2 stainless steel ones. The distillation process is computerized. While some may balk at this, in favour of a more manual, hands on approach, in reality, if the whisky produced is largely the same style of spirit on an ongoing basis, it makes a certain amount of sense to automate it, especially if, like Caol Ila, you're trying to make about 6M litres of whisky a year, to help meet the increasing global demand. Last year, Scotch whisky exports, to about 200 markets, were £4.23B. That's about 25% of all UK food and drink exports.
The whisky produced at Caol Ila uses malt, peated to about 35ppm. In previous years there have been unpeated bottlings, some of which are still available for purchase, but now the intent is to only produce the peated stuff. Production processes have to be altered quite a bit to produce unpeated whisky and to make sure that the interior of the stills are peat flavour free. Fermentation time has to be increased to make the wash more acidic and allow more interaction with the copper in the stills, aiming at a lighter spirit with a clean, green, grassy character. Processes have to be shut down temporarily for the change, causing disruption in a  high volume environment.
All of the Caol Ila spirit is taken away for casking, but some returns to mature on the island, in dunnage or rack warehouses.
After our wander around, Billy took me upstairs  to the tasting room - a lovely cosy room where many glasses and bottles had been laid out for sampling.
My friend, Geoff K, back in Ottawa, came up with TCP as a primary aroma of 12 year old Caol Ila. TCP is an antiseptic mouthwash, commonly used when I was growing up and not necessarily pleasant. The Caol Ila 12 is much more pleasant but definitely has that medicinal, antiseptic, carbolic soap meets TCP nose which is unique among Islay whiskies. The Caol Ila distillery character aroma reminds Billy of when he was a wee lad and sent to take sandwiches to family members working the 2pm to 10pm shift in what was then a noisy and aromatic environment - a wee bit scary and a wee bit exciting for a young lad.
To start of the nosing, Billy produced some new make spirit. The unpeated spirit was sweet and spicy and the peated was sharper with aromas of nail polish remover. Lots of potential there for the cask!
I tasted the 10, 12 and 14 year old unpeated, (now limited) whiskies and I liked them. Good to drink, good to collect. The 10 year old is cask strength and a whopping 65.8%. There's nice citrus fruit on the nose and huge alcohol (surprise, surprise) on the palate, with a spicy aftertaste. This, unsurprisingly, benefits from the addition of some water, to tone it down. The 12 year old, limited edition release from 2010 is also cask strength, but a more subdued 58.4%. I thought this had a sweet and tree fruit nose, especially peaches and apricots. It was fruity and lively on the palate with a bit of that antiseptic quality (but in a good way!). Nicely balanced, I liked this.

Caol Ila Moch (Dawn) is an unaged expression, probably around 8 years, a crisp and clean malt with easy smoke. The Distillers Edition, double matured in Moscatel casks offers up honeyed sweetness to mingle with smoke. Quite nice. For Ontario readers, this is the only Caol Ila distillery edition available at the LCBO right now and an interesting whisky to pick up. By contrast, and I don't want to make anyone unduly sad, take a look at this website to see the astonishing range of Caol Ila that might be available to you if you lived elsewhere. Granted some of them are now discontinued, but it gives some idea of the range of offerings from this distillery over the years.
The 18 year old was my favourite - just fabulous and, to my palate, more balanced and livelier than the 25 year old - always a matter of taste. Occasionally the 18 year old arrives at the LCBO and should be tried. I've mentioned before about the single cask, cask strength, special bottlings produced for Feis Ile, Islay's whisky festival in May. Billy let me try the 2009, 2010 and 2012, all from sherry casks, and suffice to say that any one of them would have been reason enough to go visit Islay during Feis Ile. If you're in Europe and can find any of these bottlings, they'll be in the $250 to $400 range.
We finished off the tasting with a 14 year old, again cask strength, from an oloroso sherry butt, which had been stored at Lochnagar for master classes. 99% of the whisky from Caol Ila ages in ex Bourbon casks, and the 12 and 18 year old are fine examples of this maturation. But to my mind, Caol Ila produces splendid whisky matured in sherry casks, and bottled at cask strength. Look out for those if you can find them.
Slainte!
Next up, Kilchoman - the little distillery that could............

Bruichladdich - the innovative Islay distillery

The good folks at Bruichladdich distillery proudly describe themselves as hard-working, curious, passionate and a bit  roguish. Add innovative, clever and kindly to that list and you'll be part way to understanding the group of people, who in the last 12 years, have masterminded and executed the most recent re-incarnation of Bruichladdich, and a successful one at that. Successful how? According to Alan Logan, Bruichladdich's Distillery Manager, who proudly showed me around the distillery and patiently answered my questions, production levels at the distillery were 150,000 litres 10 years ago, 750,000 litres last year and will be 1,500,000 litres next year. That seems successful!
But the intent at Bruichladdich is certainly not aimed at churning out volume. Rather, the emphasis is on producing unique and interesting whiskies with a sense of place, aided by careful experimentation with barley, peat levels, cask selection and nurturing.  I'm jumping ahead here, but near the end of my wander around the distillery with Alan, I tasted some whisky from an ex Chateau d'Yquem cask. The contents had matured for about 18 years in an ex-Bourbon cask, but had spent the last few years in the Sauternes cask. If forced to, I would have to say that it was my favourite whisky tasted  in the entire week on Islay. After my tasting in the dunnage warehouse, I talked to Jim McEwan, Production Director at Bruichladdich, (a title which doesn't even begin to describe his iconic status in the industry or his many roles at Bruichladdich) and it turned out that he shares my love of that cask. He checks it often and is nurturing it to the moment of perfection, although I would be amazed if the contents become any more sublime. Jim apologizes for his romanticism, but he calls this cask his Diana, reflecting his admiration for the late Princess. The distillery admirably matures all of its whisky on Islay and I don't imagine that every cask has a name, but I'm pretty sure that they're all lovingly nurtured. One of the warehouses in Port Charlotte was actually built from the remains of Lochindaal distillery, knocked down in 1934.
"But to our tale", to quote from Tam O'Shanter.......... .When Bruichladdich distillery was built in 1881, it was both innovative and intelligently designed, making clever use of gravity to move the different elements through the production stages. From 1937 to 1995 it had frequent ownership changes, with all the resulting ups and downs, and was then mothballed in 1995. In 2000, it was bought by a local consortium, including Jim McEwan - a consortium that had the skills, imagination, drive and financial means to restore the equipment, restart production and create the Bruichladdich renaissance. Much of the well-designed 1881 innovation is still in place, and one of the wash stills, the oldest in Scotland, in fact,  dates from that time.The distillery mill, shown here, is 99 years old. Fermentation is deliberately slow and takes place in five lovely Oregon pine and one Douglas fir washback. The four copper stills have elegant long necks, in contrast to Ugly Betty, the quirky gin still which creates the increasingly popular Botanist Gin - a tasty concoction  using 31 botanicals, 22 of them native to Islay.
The new owners, and the local team they employed, did a remarkable job of re-building interest in and demand for Bruichladdich, despite minimal existing stocks and the necessity to wait for the new spirit to mature. Colourful and creative packaging and inspired marketing of various new and young products helped the process. With no corporate watchdog to stifle creativity, innovation bloomed. A credo to employ locally and use local product led to experimentation with local, heritage and organic barley and different peat levels. Currently, 35 to 40% of the barley used is local and about 50% is organic. Although the Classic house style is sweet, elegant, floral and unpeated, the peated line includes Octomore  - off the chart at 140ppm (phenols per million) and rather tasty if you like peat. Within the consortium, there is much in depth wine and wine cask knowledge, which prompted a desire to find special casks to further mature the whisky. According to Alan, about 90% of the casks used at Bruichladdich are American bourbon first fill casks, but there are many casks to be seen bearing the name of great wine chateaux, port houses and the like. Bruichladdich coined the phrase Additional Cask Enhancement (ACE) to define the process of a second maturation of whisky in a different cask. Generally on Islay, I found that distillery folk didn't like the term "finishing" anymore, preferring instead "double maturation" -  a term that's become a bit confusing to the consumer. ACE seems to fit the bill quite nicely.
The folks at Bruichladdich have a way with words. One of their special bottlings (no longer available) was called DNA_1:The 36.This rare and expensive whisky was created by Jim with specially selected casks which had some ACE time in barrels previously containing Pomerol Chateau Le Pin.
At the spirit safe, Alan had me taste some new make Octomore. It was quite nice - sweet, with the phenols kicking in afterwards. I find that I'm developing a palate for new make spirit! By the way, to conform with Scotch whisky legislation, new make spirit cannot be called whisky until it's spent 3 years in an oak cask.
Before going off to taste a few gems in the warehouse, we stopped in at the bottling hall, built in 2002. It's rare in the industry for distilleries to do their own bottling, but it made perfect sense to the Bruichladdich team, and means that they dilute to bottling strength with local water, have control over their own bottling timing, and add to the local employment. Splendid!
Currently there are about 36,000 Bruichladdich casks on Islay. Alan took me into one of the warehouses on site to taste a few worthies. Apart from the aforementioned fabulous Sauternes ACE, I tasted a great 22 year old whisky, where the additional ACE was Calvados. I couldn't guess that one, partially because I didn't expect it, but it was quite delicious, elegant and multi-layered. Next up was a 66% ABV Octomore that had spent 3 years in virgin American oak, not often used in the industry for that length of time. Wow! It was dark and meaty and conjured up visions of barbecued pulled pork. I tried a couple of examples of similarly made, young unpeated whisky from two different strains of local barley. They were a little different in age, which would obviously have some influence, but the differences in character, nose and palate were quite noticeable.
I have to admit that I was a little star-struck by Jim McEwan, and not just because he gave me a big hug and a bottle of Bruichladdich! He's a knowledgeable, intelligent and very personable man, who has also been in the whisky industry for some 50 years, about 35 of them at Bowmore. He is a whisky creator, an ambassador for the industry and has undoubtedly been involved in every aspect of the Bruichladdich renaissance. I suspect that he also had a hand in the poetic and passionate prose in the Bruichladdich website. Although it's a challenge to read it on its dark background, the writing is a work of art and the content tells a good tale.
Alan suggested The Forbidden Fruit as my bottle of choice. Seemed like an appropriate choice!
Remy Cointreau was very clever to buy Bruichladdich Distillery a few months ago. Their marketing reach and distribution network will increase global demand for the range. Let's hope that nothing much else will change, and that passionate innovation will continue.
Slainte!
Next up - Caol Ila..............

Lagavulin Distillery - slow production and good wood policy makes great whisky.

Just opposite the imposing white buildings of Lagavulin distillery, on a site with a history dating back to the 12th century, stand the imposing ruins of Dunyvaig Castle, once the naval base of The Lord of the Isles. It's hard to say which is the most impressive, so visitors to this part of southern Islay tend to drive to the same spot up the road and photograph both.
Lagavulin was the first stop on my tour of Islay's distilleries. I was hosted by David Woods, home brand manager, a knowledgeable man whose background includes some time at Bowmore, experience as an independent bottler, good knowledge of wine and a passion for food and whisky pairing.
Lagavulin and Caol Ila, which lies much further north on the island, are both owned by Diageo. Both distilleries obtain their malted barley peated to about 35ppm, yet the distillery characters are quite different. Two factors that David feels are vital to the ultimate flavours of the whisky are the shape of the stills and the wood policy. To use a wine analogy, Caol Ila is perhaps more Sauvignon Blanc like in character, a bit oily and more maritime in character. Lagavulin 16 year old, long one of my personal favourites, has been likened to a Grand Cru Classe Bordeaux, obviously an analogy more aimed at its elegance than its flavour.
Lagavulin 16 year old is the flagship product, one that's in great demand worldwide. The wood policy that David refers to is a key contributor to the consistency of the flavour and character of the 16 year old. The important maturation process uses 100% refill hogshead ex-bourbon barrels, first filled with grain, then another malt, then Lagavulin. The grain fill takes a lot out of the cask, which is part of the strategy. The distillery doesn't want overactive casks for the 16 year old.
95% of the 2.2M litres of whisky produced at Lagavulin goes to single malt, with the rest becoming a component of White Horse blended whisky. Apart from the 16 year old, the distillery also produces a cask strength 12 year old, which is less influenced by the wood, has a more significant peatiness and, according to David, a bit of saltiness as well. The Distillers Edition is standard Lagavulin, further matured for about 3 months in Pedro Ximenez casks to produce a whisky edged with sweeter, toffee notes.
As with all of the distilleries on Islay, there is an annual special bottling for Feis Ile, the Islay whisky and music festival in May. A specially selected  single cask produces a limited number of bottles which are generally snapped up on the first day of the festival, and are highly prized. Lagavulin distillery also sponsors the Islay Jazz festival in September and  produces a single cask, cask strength bottling for the occasion. Iain MacArthur, who has worked at the distillery for many years, selected the 2011, 17 year old sherry cask and, by all accounts, it was a stunner and one which has increased in value about 8 times - if you can find it.
As Iain also selected the cask for the 2012 bottling, I made sure that I stopped in at the distillery again at the end of the week to buy one of the rare bottles. I haven't opened it yet, but I'll report back in due course.
Lagavulin was licensed in 1816, although there is evidence of illicit distilling on the site since the 1740's. The eccentric Peter Mackie was largely responsible for spreading the Lagavulin word during the early 1900s. This same gentleman also opened Malt Mill distillery, one of many lost Islay distilleries and the subject of the current whisky movie - Angel's Share. Malt Mill closed in 1963 although it lives on as the Lagavulin visitor centre.
To start everything off, the peat for Lagavulin whisky comes from Castle Hill on Islay, where it has a high moisture content. In the kiln, higher moisture imbues more smoke into the barley in a  shorter amount of time. The distillery mills its own barley in a  1963 mill, and the resulting grist goes into the mash tun in 4.32 tonne batches with three hot water fills of around 21,000 litres at increasingly higher temperatures.
10 lovely larch washbacks, each with a capacity of 21,000 litres handle the fermentation of the wort, 5 hours apart, for a total slow fermentation time of 55 hours. We tasted some of the wash during the fermentation process and it had developed some nice citrus and tobacco notes on the nose, with both smokiness and sweetness on the taste. It's astonishing really to have that much character even before the liquid is beer-like.
The two wash stills are steam heated, hold 10,000 litres each and have steep lyne arms. At 10 1/2 hrs, Lagavulin purportedly has the longest distillation on Islay and one of the longest in Scotland, potentially building more character and contributing to the unique Lagavulin profile. The stillman takes a bigger middle cut than most distilleries, retaining more phenols and again aiming for the desired character.

After looking around the distillery, we headed back to the visitor centre to have a wee tasting. The new make spirit was tasty for a young thing. The nose was quite perfumed with nice smoke on the palate and more especially on the finish. I could drink this stuff, but was much happier to try the 16 year old next - fruit followed by smoke. David talked a bit about the double maturation policies for some of the Diageo malts Distillers Editions. They tend to be quite specific to provide clarity between the brands - Cragganmore Distillers Edition has an extra maturation in port casks; Lagavulin in PX sherry; Talisker in Amoroso; Clynelish in oloroso. We tried a 17 year old Lagavulin, double matured in PX sherry casks. It was delicious, with lots of sticky toffee, raisins and Christmas pudding character; then lovely smoke to follow up! David dug into his whisky and food passion pot and suggested serving it chilled right down to accompany a hot sweet dessert. Oh my!
Next up, we tasted some of the 2012, 14 year old Feis Ile single cask whisky, which had matured in a  fino sherry cask. This one was peaty all the way through and completely different in character. The 12 year old cask strength was lovely with a bit of water to soften it up. Iain joined us at this point and we took a wander into one of the dunnage warehouses, all damp and dank and cold. While you wouldn't want this flooring in your basement, whisky barrels love this stuff! Iain pointed out three casks each containing 550 litres and mentioned that the duty recently paid on the lot amounted to £18,033. He was quite specific!
In the warehouse, we tasted some really interesting whisky from individual casks - an 8 year old from a  bodega cask, already showing fine Lagavulin character; a 19 year old that was fantastic; and a 14 year old, which was smoother and softer than the 14 year old Feis Ile bottling I had tried earlier. Finally, I tasted from a 1966 cask, and a 1982 cask. I think the 1966 is kept there as an experiment, as it had lost character, aroma and flavour - definitely past its best. Iain agreed, although he did tell me in his lilting island voice that some of the ladies like that one. The 30 year old was in the category of "finest whiskies I've ever tasted" - superbly balanced, luscious, elegant - a fine product of a cold, damp place!
Can't wait to try that 2012 Lagavulin Jazz Festival bottle!
Slainte!
Next up - Bruichladdich........

Bowmore Distillery - a warm place for a wee dram!

In 1966, Eddie MacAffer was hired at Bowmore Distillery to dig drains. 46 years later, Whisky Magazine has named Eddie 'Whisky Distillery Manager of the Year", an honour he shares with John McLellan of Kilchoman. In September, I had the pleasure of spending a morning with Eddie, and it was a special morning filled with tales and reminiscences, a good look around a well run distillery, the sharing of career highlights and some fine tastings. 
Following a fortnight's hard work digging drains, Eddie worked his way through every area at Bowmore - the warehouse, the malt barn, the stillhouse and the mash house until, in the 1990's, Jim McEwan, now production director at Bruichladdich and another industry icon, made him head maltman, followed by brewer, head distiller and eventually Distillery Manager. Eddie has been involved in running the distillery for the last 20 years or so.
He is enormously proud of the Bowmore range of whiskies - a range that is substantial by any measure and includes Legend, 12, 15, 18, Surf, Enigma 12, Mariner 15, 17, Tempest 10, Laimrig 15, as well as some rare whiskies and Islay festival special bottlings. I asked Eddie what his absolute favourite whisky was and he shared with me his proudest moment at Bowmore.
In 1964, two years before young Eddie joined Bowmore, some whisky went into ex-sherry casks and some into ex-bourbon casks for maturation. That in itself was not particularly unique except for the fact that the whisky was left to mature for over 40 years. The Black (ex-sherry) was bottled at 42 years, the White (ex-bourbon) at 43 and, in 2009 in San Francisco and New York, the distillery released a very limited edition lot of  the Gold (a marriage of the two). Eddie proclaimed the Gold to be the best whisky he had ever tasted in his entire life. Post release, the trilogy auctioned at Christie's for $21,600.
Not all old whisky is wonderful. High among many contributory factors to a fantastic old whisky is the quality of the maturation casks and, according to Eddie, Bowmore pays particular attention to cask selection and quality.
Later in the morning, after an in-depth tour of the distillery, Eddie took me into Bowmore's famous vault #1, a damp, cold and dark dunnage warehouse, the oldest in Scotland, the only one below sea level and a place perfect for maturation. In the deepest part of the vault, the sea can clearly be heard rolling around overhead. In other parts of the vault, the distillery ghost (apparently a  benign phantom) can sometimes, purportedly, be seen or heard.
From the grand selection of casks, quietly maturing some of Bowmore's finest whisky, Eddie selected a bourbon cask and an older sherry cask for me to try. Both were outstanding - wonderful expressions of two lovely Bowmore whiskies, differentiated by age and the cask. We created our own version of Gold by doing a little blending of the two. Outstanding!
Prior to reaching the vault, we had a leisurely and informative stroll around the distillery, starting with the floor maltings, where Eddie demonstrated the technique for turning the malt. Only a handful of distilleries in Scotland still carry out any of their own floor maltings. Most, for reasons of economics and demand, obtain their malt, prepared to individual specifications, from malting works. Of the few that malt some or all of their barley in house, three are on Islay - Bowmore, Laphroaig and Kilchoman - another reason to visit this wonderful west coast island.
Bowmore's ultimate owner is Suntory, a company that Eddie greatly respects. Its demand for quality and tradition is evident throughout the distillery, from the retention of the traditional malting works to the beautiful 100 year old copper tanks, the mash tun and the stills, all of which look as if they've been hand polished.
From the malting floor, we visited the kilns, where peat is burned for 15 hours to imbue wonderful smoky character into the green and drying barley, prior to 45 hours further drying with hot air. Standing inside the kiln and breathing in all the hot air and barley and peat aromas was a truly delightful experience. I felt like snuggling down in a warm corner with a wee dram.
Each of the six washbacks has a name above it - reflecting the different ownership throughout the years. Eddie had a story to tell about each one, finishing with the Morrison family, who took over ownership in 1963.
Near the end of our walkabout, I noticed a room named the Caboodle room and Eddie explained that, in the 1950's, Edward Atkin, a professorial type of  fellow who liked to dabble with new make spirit and concoct all kinds of different beverages, used to work in that room and talk about all his "kit and caboodle". It's doubtful that much of Edward's mixtures made it into bottles but the name remains. Up until 1974, the Caboodle room was also used for "dramming the men" - the practise of giving a substantial dram of whisky to each of the distillery workers several times a day!
In 1957, presumably one of these well lubricated workers was responsible for filling a particular cask, the contents of which were carefully nurtured for 54 years. Only 12 bottles from this cask will go on sale, making it the oldest Islay malt ever released. Two bottles will be auctioned by Bonhams during October - one in Edinburgh and the other  in New York, each with a reserve bid of approximately $155,000, with all net proceeds being donated to five Scottish charities. How splendid!
In a previous act of community service, Bowmore donated maturation warehouse number three to the town of Bowmore. This building now houses the town swimming pool, which is heated via a pipeline from the distillery - further reason for Eddie MacAffer to be proud of his place of work.
Before heading to the distillery shop to purchase some more modestly priced bottles than the Gold, I chatted with "Ginger" Willie, who started at the distillery 45 years ago, when his hair was ginger. As I shared the same nickname when I was a young lass, I felt a certain affinity with this delightful man with the lilting accent and many island tales to tell.
After fond farewells and a promise to return, I headed to the pier to snap a few last photos of the distillery. While I battled against a vicious wind producing impressive waves that lashed over the breakwater, I marvelled at the fact that I had just met two fine folk whose time at Bowmore totalled 91 years!
This is a giddy year for Morrison Bowmore on the Icons of Whisky arena. In addition to Eddie's award, other accolades include Whisky Distiller of the Year and Whisky Ambassador of the Year, awarded to Iain McCallum, marketing services manager. In addition to Bowmore distillery, Morrison Bowmore own Auchentoshan and Glen Garioch. Whisky Magazine awarded the company Whisky Distiller of the Year for a number of reasons including some fine releases from all three brands. Even if you don't pick up a bottle of Bowmore Gold or bid on a bottle of the 1957, chances are there's a fine bottle of Bowmore out there to whet your whisky palate.
Slainte!

Next up - Lagavulin.