Spirit of the island

09 Aug Spirit of the island

It would be remiss not to write about the spirit of Islay, a spirit that flows through the community and bids you a warm welcome – at anything from 40-65% proof. Islay is the spiritual home of peaty malt whisky. But, I sense from someone who lives here, that the Islay folk, perhaps now diluted with incomers, prefer their spirit blended. I suppose it’s a class thing, too: if the golden liquid is your poison then the cheapest route to oblivion is Grants, Bells or Teachers, a wee half bottle from the Co-op for a few quid and all your worries will disappear for a while. None of your fancy stuff with its eye-watering prices.

However, maybe my informant was being unfair…

But whisky brings in the tourists and the island has nine established distilleries with, apparently, another five waiting in the wings for the magical 10 years to elapse so they have a respectable vintage to offer. Age is everything with whisky. Sigh … if only it were true of life.

From my favourite beach I can look across the wide crescent of bay that hosts the (occasionally attractive on a sunny day if you ignore the malting works chimney and the grain store by the pier) village of Port Ellen to a long, low white-washed building with a black slate roof. I can make out the letters HROAIG in black capitals – I’d left the binoculars behind but the eye surgeon has done an excellent job. I should write and thank him. The three letters at the start of the word are obscured by the rocks, but I know what they are. Laphroaig, internationally known and loved, owned by some conglomerate or other, can’t remember which one. Hardly any of them are independent these days. Stands to reason – a ten-year wait for any return on your investment? Don’t be silly.  

A couple of bays further north along the coast is Lagavulin and beyond that Ardbeg. Each of them has the black and white motif on the sea-facing wall of a low white-washed building, probably a cask room or store of some kind. Likewise, all the distilleries on Islay. So, really, the best view of them is from the sea. You can rock up in your yacht, drop anchor (if that’s what you do on a yacht) and row the dinghy ashore to taste or stock up. Are there rules about drinking and sailing, I wonder?

A friend visited for a few days last week and we did a tour at Lagavulin. I’ve done distillery tours before and they’re much of a muchness, as my mother used to say, though God forbid she’d not have been seen dead in a distillery herself. But still, each tour has a bit of a local flavour. Napoleon (not forgetting Wellington) had his Waterloo in 1815 the same year that Islay got its first legal hooch. Until then, it had been strictly illegal. The excise men would come unannounced to try and catch the islanders out. But their boat could be seen on the horizon and, the story goes, that the local people rallied to the cause, quickly hid the still(s) in the church inside a coffin and summoned everyone to a funeral, warning the excisemen: ‘Och, no. Dinna look inside. ‘Twas a terrible death.’ A lot of funerals followed grisly deaths along the coast at that time…

Our guide was entertaining and exceptionally well-rehearsed but also able to go off script to answer questions. We managed to forgive the fact that he came from Luton and had no apparent historical connection with Islay, though clearly a fondness for its spirit. The tour ended with a triple tasting. I only sniffed as I was driving and, in any case, don’t drink the stuff. Though, without the car, I might have been persuaded, for scientific purposes, of course. The warmest, roundest sniff (and taste, I’m told) was from the 16-year old that had spent almost 15 years of its fermented life in a bourbon cask and its last 14 months in a sherry one. Changes the colour dramatically; changes the aroma for sure; changes the taste, rounding it a little, I suppose. But mostly it’s the effect of age that softens the hard, oily, alcohol edges and makes the stuff palatable (I’m told).

The distillery ‘shop’ is the thing that sets Lagavulin apart. At least that’s what we thought. Separates ‘class’ from ‘commerce’. At Lagavulin, the focus is on whisky and the merchandise reflects this – OK, bar the T-shirts. But we did a quick shop tour of the other two – a sort of horizontal tasting of the retail offer. Laphroaig devotes more space to branded clothing, bags, jackets, caps and marmalade than it does to bottles of its own whisky. At Ardbeg, this is taken to a whole different level: golf balls, golf tees, wallets, ties, sweaters, anoraks, trousers, water bottles, shoes, pens, towels. You name it, and you can probably find it there. Ardbeg is owned by Louis Vuitton – need I say more?

Up the road at the Islay Woollen Mill, a solitary weaver works on a huge old loom in a shed that must be bitterly cold and damp in the winter. Actually, the man looked pretty pale and cold in summer. How he survives the winter, who knows – maybe a nip of whisky? He took me on a very short, mainly monosyllabic tour, but did warm to the task by and by. There’s a tweed for each distillery. I mean, really? Lagavulin’s tweed easily the most tasteful. And, finally, he pointed to a tweed specially woven for the owner of the Daily Mail. I was out of there. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Speaking of sacred, a few miles up the road from the mill is Finlaggan so I dropped in there to see if Somerled, the Lord of the Isles, really did know what he was talking about when it came to landscape and good taste. The answer? Oh, yes. He did. This is a magical place, yet it is also, somehow, ordinary. A loch hidden in a sheltered glen, out of sight of road and sea – what’s so special? There’s an atmosphere. It’s a place of calm and I could feel it immediately I stepped onto the path that leads down to the three little islands on the loch. Here Somerled could clear his head and take stock, breathe in deeply and reflect. A place of utter quiet and repose. A place to think. Of course, I could be imagining all this. Perhaps he spent his time drinking, womanising and planning his next skirmish. But, somehow, that couldn’t be right. Not here.

A small, unobtrusive visitor centre explains the history and a wooden walkway/bridge takes you across the marshy foreshore between stately, tall reeds and onto the larger island, where lie the remnants of several buildings dated back as far as the 13^th century. It’s like a walk into the soul of Islay, stepping into history to greet the spirit of the island.