Scotch Island

By Alice Feiring

YEARS AGO, I lost my heart to a single-malt whisky from Islay. That Laphroaig 10-year-old was a potent dram that smelled like a smokehouse and slid down with elegant fire, and it's from one of the seven whisky distilleries that dot this small and remote western Scottish island.

True Scotch drinkers tend to relish Islay's often difficult flavors: seaweed, salt water, cigar smoke and that lovely aroma that comes from toasting the soon-to-be-fermented barley over a peat fire. In high season--spring and summer, when the weather is more agreeable--whisky pilgrims can be found hopping from one distillery to another, tasting and learning about their favorite spirit.

On the rainy and chilled day when I arrived last May, black-faced baby lambs leaped about on multitoned green grass. Fluorescent yellow coconut-scented gorse growing next to electric colored bluebells signaled that, stormy weather aside, this was indeed spring. The next morning the skies cleared and the weather turned summery. Rachel Whyte, a co-proprietor of and the chef at the Glenmachrie Country Guest House, fed me some surprisingly mild-tasting smoked kippers, which, had it not been morning, would have paired well with a Bowmore 17year-old. Bowmore, on the north part of the island, is one of two remaining distilleries (Laphroaig, the other) still peat smoking their barley in house. Try to time your visit to when the fires are cranked. The aroma of baking bread, along with the barley smoke, is a sensory explosion.

While Scotch geeks get goosebumps gazing upon imposing, graceful copper stills, the real fun for many people is in watching the foaming and burbling of fermentation. On visits you will have ample time to see the process as well as taste the new distillate.

Though each one is worth visiting, you probably don't need to see all seven distilleries. But you will want to visit their stores for such rare special bottlings as cask strengths and older selections. Remember that off-season hours are limited and that getting to Islay isn't all that fast or easy even during the summer. I suggest prebooking rooms and tours if you plan a visit during the fall or winter months.

For visitors in high season, here's one schedule to consider: a 10:15 a.m. tour at Laphroaig and then the 11:30 a.m. at Lagavullin. Head on to Ardbeg for a homespun lunch followed by the 2:30 p.m. tour. Don't forget to allow for time to take in the seals basking on the harbor's rocks and to visit Kildalton High Cross, built in A.D. 800. And be sure to sneak a small flask into your pocket and walk. Scotland is a spiritually beautiful country, and a wee drink makes it all the more so.