The Joys of Islay

Sun Sep 24 23:57:57 CEST 2006

 Hi Grant ,
Glad you all had a good time on Islay , ii must say you picked two of our
favourite places on islay to tell us about , My wife and myself will be
hitting the Port Charlotte hotel again at the end of November for another
long Week-end (hopefully no strong winds and ferry cancellations  this time.
...) and will no doubt be visiting the Old Kiln on the Friday for lunch .
The food is indeed amazing and as well as the whisky , the real ales are a
joy in the bar . Shame you didn't pop into Laddie as well to see the
wonderful Mary in the shop , she's a star turn !

Gordon

-------Original Message-------

From: Grant Goodes
Date: 24/09/2006 21:05:19
To: MALTS-L at LISTS.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE
Subject: The Joys of Islay

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Ireland (for my Mother-in-law's
70th birthday), and as part of the "sugar to make the medicine go down", I
finagled a side-trip to Islay.  It turns out you can get very cheap (around
60 UKP) flights from Glasgow to Islay these days, and this is _far_ less
painful than renting a car and driving to Oban and then taking the ferry
(which we did on our honeymoon, many moons ago).  So, still jet-lagged from
our trans-Atlantic flight, we found ourselves in the Islay airport arrivals
lounge, which had a tiny snack bar complete with four or five malts and a
selection of the Islay brewery's products (all tasted were good).  Our party
of 6 (including friends from Edinburgh) rented a van and proceeded to Port
Charlotte, where we had booked a room and dinner at the Port Charlotte Hotel

A simply amazing dinner was had in the hotel's dining room, and then we
retired to the bar, which had somewhere on the order of 80 malts, ALL from
Islay, which we proceeded to sample.  Perhaps the duration of our endeavours
in the hotel bar had some bearing on the late hour of our next morning's
start-time, but we eventually made it onto the road to see a few of the
distilleries.

The order was Bowmore, Ardbeg, Lagavulin and finally Laphroig.  For me, the
highlight was Ardbeg, as I'd been particularly interested to see what the
new
owners (Glenmorangie, as of 1998) had been doing with the product.  I have
not been that pleased with the Ardbeg 10 of late, finding it lacked
character
and peat, but that is of course product from the previous owners.

The tour-guide was very knowledgeable, and very accommodating, with a broad
Islay accent.  She allowed us to sample the fully fermented wort (basically
an 8% beer).  It was like smokey alcoholic lemonade, and was lovely.  Then
we we given a sample of the new make (0-day old whiskey) at 73%, and I was
amazed by the quality.  I've tried new make several times before, and it
is typically barely drinkable gasoline, with but a hint of the future
character that will inform the aged malt.  The Ardbeg 0-day was delicious
and smooth, and though it would clearly strip skin-cells from the roof of
your mouth, was dangerously drinkable.

In the gift-shop at the tour's conclusion, we were given samples of two
Ardbeg products I had never tried.  The first, "Serendipity's", was the
result of a screw-up at the bottling plant and was 80% Ardbeg with 20% of
another malt added by mistake.  Nothing to write home about.  The second
was "Still Young", which is the 8yo version of the first (1998) whiskey
from the new owner's regime.  (It is second in a series, starting with
"Very Young" from 2004, and to be concluded next year with "Almost There"
at 9yo, leading up to the first release of Ardbeg 10 in 2008).

I was _very_ impressed by the cask-strength "Still Young".  It had amazing
peat character, lovely balanced malt sweetness, and despite its young age
was incredibly smooth.  Adding water brought out more complexity, without
dulling the burn (a paperiness akin to the 70's Talisker).  I bought a
bottle (30 UKP for a 57% malt -- very reasonable), which we ended up
consuming during the course of our trip.  I made several attempts to locate
samples of "Very Young", the 6yo version (some sources say it's 5yo), but
it was uniformly unavailable.

Intending to buy a bottle of "Still Young" for return to Canada, I reserved
a bottle at the off-licence near our accommodations.  Rushing in on the way
to the airport for our return flight, I discovered that they had
mis-identified
the bottle, and it was actually some remaining stock of the "Very Young"
(even cheaper at 28 UKP).  I can report that it is also very fine, and is
perhaps the youngest malt that I have ever truly enjoyed.  Alas, I was
unable
to do a side-by-side comparison of the two ages, but the quality of these
two early samples seems to bode well for the prospects of a truly great
Ardbeg 10yo starting in 2008.

Well, enough rambling (I'm still jet-lagged), but I encourage any with the
opportunity to visit Islay to do so, and can heartily recommend the Port
Charlotte Hotel, and the Ardbeg distillery tour.

grant..

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