In which we have a completely free day with nothing scheduled, except the things we decided to schedule, only one of which is actually scheduled; the others are more sortof loose plans. We also see baby seals, none of which are pink or flying.

I deliberately left our last full day on Islay unscheduled, so that we could just have a wee wander aboot the island as we saw fit. This lasted about 36 hours into the trip, until breakfast on the second day, when we asked Harold (our host) about his work. A retired fishing boat captain after 30 years, he now works with Sea Adventures, taking tourists along the Islay coastline and around the nearby islands, on fishing and wildlife trips (among others, I’m sure). He mentioned that the wildlife tours were currently viewing the seals around the southeast side of the island because it was seal cub season, and there were already a hundred or more in the area. “Seal cubs” sealed our fate, and we were booked on the 2:00pm tour within a few mins. So that’s this afternoon.

The ladies also wanted to wander around Bowmore (pronounced almost like “B’more”) and visit a couple of shops there, in particular “Spirit Soaps”, a local crafter who makes many different cosmetics, but specializes in soaps featuring some of the local spirits. We’ve actually tried their soaps before and really like ‘em. I, on the other hand, have never toured Bowmore distillery. Knowing that the ladies would be distilleried-out by this time, I hadn’t put it on the itinerary. But since I was going to be right there…

I got myself on first basic tour of the day at 10:00am, along with two other gents.

TOUR DETAILS – COMING SOON

When we arrived at the bar area for our drams, I ran into two ladies that I recognized. They may be distilleried-out, but apparently not whiskied-out. Mija was enjoying a nice dram of the Vault Edition while the wean nosed on.

Lynne poured us our first dram, the 12 year old, and set us up with our next two… As promised, she also set us up with a sample of the bourbon that was in the casks previously (Jim Beam, I believe, though we weren’t told) and Pedro Ximinez sherry (again, no label info). The sherry was insane: thick, rich, deluxe fruit. Comparing these sources with the drams themselves was a wonderful comparison, and not something I’d been able to do before.

Mija also ordered another dram: the 18 year travel edition, which was quite tasty.

Lynne spoiled us rotten: the wean was given an Irn Bru so that she could enjoy a drink as well; there were orange chocolates to compliment the whisky; a dram of the new make spirit; and a whole plate of fresh made shortbread. As I’ve said many times before, it’s these little touches that keep me taking these tours and engaging with the folks who lead ‘em. They’re very often great people with a real passion for the industry, and they appreciate others who share that passion.

We did have one more thing that I wanted to do before our boat tour, so we bade Lynne a farewell, spent money in the shop, and headed a few miles north to Bridgend. There, in Islay House Square, I was looking forward to stopping by the Ardnahoe visitor center.

Turns out, they were late opening today because they were in training. Oh well, we’ll just have to explore some of the other craft shops in the area. I wonder what’s he… Islay Ales! Sweet! Islay Ales is the local craft brewery, started largely because there was nowhere on the island to get a good beer. I’ve also heard it told that the distilleries were fed up with employees “quality checking” the wash, and were desperate for someone to make real beer with their barley to curtail this habit. I’d been sampling several of the beers while on the island (and on the ferry) and had been hoping to pick up a few to take home. And here they were. So I ducked in and chatted with …. damn, I never got his name. Shame on me. Well anyway, a thoroughly decent gent who was happy to pour me a few samples, talk about the tiny brewery (it really is tiny), joke around with the wean, then sell me a gift pack.

We wandered a little more, then saw that the Ardnahoe door was open, so I made a beeline for the visitor center. There I met Bryony, one of the four original team members for Ardnahoe, manager of the visitor center and in charge of marketing. And she was delighted to chat with me about the goings-on. It turns out that they’re just a month or two from opening proper, but most of the equipment is already installed and they have great pictures in the visitors’ center. Bryony talked me through a few of the more exciting details and, dear lord, what a set of lyne arms! These things are 7 meters long. 7 meters! They go on forever! They have a downward angle of about 3 degrees, so this is going to be a fascinating whisky. That much contact with copper will remove out a lot of the sulphur compounds that gives whisky meaty, sometimes vegetal notes, and would normally lighten the whisky. But with the slight down-angle as well, they’re going to capture a little oil and some of the heavier stuff as well. The contrast should be fascinating. I managed to restrain myself from asking about the cask purchasing program (£7,000 if you’re interested), but only just.

Instead, we moved on to the range of whiskies that they had for sale. Ardnahoe is being built by Hunter Laing, a well-established independent bottler based out of Glasgow. As such, they have a large supply of whiskies, many of which they have bought as new make and aged to their own specifications, in barrels of their own choosing. Hmm, I neglected to ask where they age, but I’ll do that the next time I visit 🙂 ‘Cause I’ll be back. I mean, I have to, now.

You see, I now have a complete set of Islay distilleries. I’ve toured all eight currently operational distilleries – some more than once – and I’ve taken the only tour available at the most recent addition, before it even went online! (If I was going to be in the UK in a couple of months, I’d come back just for that). With all these done, I was worried that I didn’t have an excuse to come back. Ardnahoe provides that excuse. And so will Port Ellen, when Diageo bring her back online in the next few years. And then there’s the Whisky Exchange distillery, planned for midway between Port Ellen and Laphroaig. Remember my favourite 3 mile stretch of road? It’s gonnie get even better!

It was now getting close to our Sea Adventures tour, so we had to leave. I thanked Bryony profusely for the chat, and she made me promise to keep in touch and keep track of things. We then pegged it back south to Port Ellen, using the more direct single-track road we discovered on Sunday (no pilot this time, but we still sailed along it), and arrived with time to dump our stuff at the B&B, change, and head to the marina.

It turns out that we were going to have two skippers, one of whom was Harold, so we were off to a great start. The weather was insanely nice – around 26C (80F) and clear, too hot for me really – and the water dead calm. We had a small group of 10 total, including ourselves, so plenty of space on deck. And the skippers did us proud. The first part of the tour is actually a sail-by of the three distilleries. We sailed into the bays of Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and Ardbeg, waving to folks on the tour, then moved on to the seals. The area that they come to breed is largely protected, and they seem to know it. They’re just out, lounging on the rocks, sunning themselves. Not as adventurous as dolphins, a few would plop into the water when we got close, but most just stuck their noses above to see what we were up to. When we slowed way down, a few would come in a little closer to the boat for a bit of a nosey, especially the pups. The mums didn’t like that quite so much, so tended to steer them a bit further back. But they were great fun to watch.

At the halfway point, the drams came out – Laphroaig 10, a fine fine dram – and we loitered in Glas Uig, just south of Arous Bay, on the southeast corner of the island. Turns out that this lovely little inlet has several points of interest. First, there are a lot of deer who hang out in the trees just up the hill from the shore. We saw several basking in the shade. The deer often swim out from this point to other, tiny, uninhabited islands nearby, just ‘cause. None were in swimming moods today (though we spotted a couple on one of these islands later on the tour, on our way back). Historically, this bay is of interest because there is a natural path down through the rocks that ends in a rough stone jetty that looks like it was carved into the rock at the waters edge. This turns out to be the closest accessible point to the mainland, so farmers used to herd livestock down here and onto boats, to be taken to the mainland and sold. The last point of interest is a little more recent than that, but still historic. In 1921, a German gent introduced himself to the local landowner in a hotel bar on the island. He wanted to apologize for stealing his sheep during the First World War, when he used to park his U-Boat in the bay and occasionally send his crew out to snag sheep for the cook. There’s a great newspaper article about this that shows fine Islay lamb hanging from the conning tower of a German U-boat. Turns out that, when moored in this natural bay, the subs were basically invisible from anywhere but the one hillside that looks down on the bay. The captain had used this to his advantage many times, so often that he got comfortable sending his crew ashore to poach dinner!

The tour headed back from this point, with more seals, deer, and other wildlife. Harold caught my eye and offered me half of what was left of the Laphroaig, which he knew fine well I’d accept. Yup, I have a reputation with the locals. I can live with that! A little later, he tried to point out the pink dolphins and seals to us… but I hadn’t had that much whisky. Nice try, though 🙂

We got back to harbor having had a bonus third hour on the boat. It was such a great afternoon for it, with the breeze off the ocean cooling us all down, that everyone had been happy to take our time and enjoy it. Embrace the island lifestyle of “whatever o’clock”.

Not much more excitement today. We grabbed dinner at the Islay Hotel again, after which I’m determined to make my own variation on the Blaggis Burger; a combination of black pudding, haggis, and beef. The black pudding will be harder to come by back home, but haggis and beef are easy. Should be fun to try.

We headed back to the B&B, packed for our departure the next day, and all kinda crashed again because we were still hot and so was the room. Seriously, Scotland, what gives with this insane weather?