The industry is growing, but little has changed on the Scottish island of Islay
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We were driving on what is locally known as the Golden Mile, a stretch on the wind-pummeled, rugged island of Islay off Scotland ’ s southwest coast that includes three time-honored, world-renowned distilleries that most Scotch whisky drinkers would recognize by name ? Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Laphroaig.
It was shortly after 9 a.m. on Islay (EYE-lah), and just over a hilly green on the right, the waves of the Atlantic were lapping against the rocky coastline. To the left were vast expanses of farmland, peat bogs and intermittent homes. We slowed down as a majestic Highland cow crossed the road in no particular hurry.
Aside from the fact that the road, a mere gash in this ancient landmass, is paved, the landscape looks much as it did in the 1880s when Alfred Barnard traversed it in a horse-drawn carriage.
Barnard, a handlebar-mustachioed Briton, worked for Harper’s Weekly Gazette, a drinks trade magazine that still exists as Harpers Wine & Spirit. He wanted a thorough education on the whisky industry to have a solid foundation for his work, so he went on a near-Homerian odyssey through Britain.
He visited 161 distilleries (129 in Scotland) and chronicled the journey. His voluminous entries were printed in the magazine and published in 1887 as “The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom,” a doorstop of a book.
Leafing through its pages today, the book serves as evidence that the Scotch industry innovates and grows without actually changing much.
Among nations with a history of whisky-making like Ireland, Canada and the United states, Scotland is by far the most prominent. In 2017, over 85 million cases of Scotch were consumed globally. Compare that with 44 million cases of American whisky and 28 million cases of American whisky and 28 million of Canadian whisky and just under nine million of Irish whisky, according to the Scotch Whisky Association, a trade group.
At the moment, Britain’s northern-most country boasts 126 Scotch whisky distilleries. Fifteen of them have opened in the last three years, and more are at various stages of development.
Islay, known as the “ Queen of the Hebrides, ” is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides, accessible by ferry and plane. It remains unique among Scottish regions in that its whiskies are characterized by smoky, peaty flavors and aromas. Many consider it an acquired taste, but for those who have acquired it, like myself, Islay is pilgrimage-worthy, much like Bordeaux is for oenophiles, and like those wine-producing regions where vineyards dominate the landscape, the local drink is more than just a drink on Islay.
Barnard ’ s tome reads like a travelogue. Writing in the first person, he captured the lush scenery, encounters with distillery managers and workers, road conditions, even the weather. Yet he makes “ no pretension to literary merit, ” as he fastidiously documented the distilleries ’ technical details like capacities of grain storage units and sizes of buildings and machinery.
Seven of the nine Islay distilleries Barnard wrote about are still operational. Two closed in the mid-to-late 1900s, when demand for single malt Scotches whisky made from 100 percent malted barley at a single distillery) declined as a result of changes in taste and fashion. Single malts long have been and still are largely used for blended Scotches, which are single malts blended with grain whisky; the pop appeal of single malts is a relatively new phenomenon.
When I first visited Islay 12 years ago, I was just starting to write about the spirits industry for magazines and newspapers. I took it upon myself to study the myriad details of production and, as it turned out, learn of Scotland ’ s Colorful history while at it.
What strikes me now as much as it did then as I walked through grand still houses and cold, dim barrel warehouses, the air heavy with evaporated spirit that’s called the angels’ share, is how unchanging whisky-making remains.
This is despite how much the Scotch industry has grown. Distilleries are building new warehouses for aging whisky around the island and adding stills. And while automation has slightly reduced the need for as much hands-on labor, there’s no way to accelerate production, which consists of grinding malted barley into grist, cooking it in water, adding yeast to ferment the mixture into a beer, distilling it to concentrate the alcohol and letting it rest in oak casks for up to several decades.
And the old-worldliness of it all suffuses Islay, which exists on the fringe of modernity. There ’ s a local paper, The Ileach, but it comes “ fortnightly. ” There are public buses, but they double as school buses on weekdays, because on an island with a population of only 3,500, you can get away with that. Some people still heat their homes using peat: decayed, millennia-old vegetal matter that ’ s used here to fuel fires to dry barley, infusing the air with heady smoky aromas that define Islay whiskies. Many will tell you they never lock their doors.
But now, as ground breaks on new distilleries around Scotland ? and the world ? it feels as if another golden age is upon us.
Barnard’s exuberance and chattiness made me think he’d be a charming companion, so when I traveled to Islay in the winter of 2016, I packed his nearly 500-page tome along with my rain gear in preparation for the island7s blustery winter conditions. As it turned out, a Victorian view of Islay is pretty modern.
