Australian Gourmet Traveller - (03)March 2019 (1)

GOURMET TRAVELLER 125

From above:

inside Islay

House; rolls of

Harris Tweed; the

Callanish Stones.

Opposite, from

top: Bruichladdich

head distiller

Adam Hannett;

Bruichladdich’s

distillery, Islay.

all the traits of the self-proclaimed “progressive
Hebridean distiller”. Chief among them is head
distiller Adam Hannett. Raised on the island, he
joined Bruichladdich in 2004 as a tour guide and
has worked in every corner of the distillery since. Like
all the folk here he cares deeply about provenance,
the fact that all his barley is Scottish and increasing
amounts – including an ancient variety of bere barley

• are grown in tricky conditions here on Islay. It’s
  distilled, aged and bottled on-site, and a “transparency”
  campaign allows drinkers to trace online the life cycle
  of their dram. There are plans to malt here, too.
  “Let’s taste something we’ve been working on,”
  Hannett says conspiratorially, and I follow him into
  a dark warehouse full of casks that once held bourbon
  and sherry. He draws clear spirit from a virgin
  American oak barrel. “We had this idea to try growing
  some rye and see what happened,” he says. We take
  a sip of what will become Islay’s first rye whisky:

potent at 65 per cent, but peppery, raisiny and full
of promise. “I remember standing in the still house
at three o’clock in the morning, watching the spirit
coming off, making the cuts, nosing and tasting it.
It was a lovely moment – doing something no one
else has.” Hannett looks boyishly happy.
Huge numbers of migratory birds stop by Islay –
including geese from Greenland that inconveniently
eat the barley that’s meant to make whisky – and this
attracts plenty of birdwatchers. But the big draw is the

prospect of hopping between these solid old seafront
distilleries, surveying the mash tuns and the stills,
smelling the wort, talking barrel age and drinking
whisky in a stiff breeze barrelling off the Atlantic. No
matter how many times I hear the complicated process
of distillation explained in accents as thick as treacle,
I’m looking forward to the next tour. Though the
process is essentially the same, the distilleries have
unique character. The island’s oldest, Bowmore, has
massive old wooden mash tuns and the atmospheric
Potter-esque No 1 Vaults; the newest distillery, the

family-owned Kilchoman, has a malting floor piled
with germinating barley.
A couple of drams before lunch doesn’t seem overly
indulgent when three of the most popular distilleries

• Laphroaig, Ardbeg and Lagavulin – can be reached
  by a bracing stroll along a coastal track, lined with wild
  yellow irises and occasional seal sightings.We continue
  north, winding through bowers of oak, and stumble
  upon a lonely churchyard and the remarkable Kildalton
  Cross, carved in the 8th century and regarded as the

finest Celtic cross in Scotland. Another distillery tour
in the afternoon bookends most days, which might end
with dinner at baronial Islay House, a restored estate
dating to 1677, where roasted Islay scallops are spiked
with wasabi and topped with black-pudding crumb. Or
at a rowdy session of fiddling and accordion-squeezing➤