The Pride Of Islay

Affluent Magazine – October 2007

If you travel to the southern end of the Inner Hebrides archipelago in Scotland, you’ll find a rocky, windswept isle with more than 130 miles of spectacular coastline, huge communities of otters, seals and marine birds, and 3,500 people who love their Scotch whiskey. And they should. After all, their island’s name, Islay, is synonymous with single malt production, and whiskey is the hub of the local economy. Sure, there are single malt lovers who drift toward milder Highland, Speyside and Lowland styles of whiskey. But most of the time, the real aficionados will order a snifter of robust Islay whiskey; a liquor that tastes of the rich dark earth. There are eight distilleries on Islay, each with their own unique character, but the pioneer, the oldest of them all, is Bowmore.

David Simson was a man of many trades. He was a merchant, a farmer, a postmaster, a sailor, and an expert whiskey distiller. But until he moved to Islay from Killarow in 1766, he remained an amateur, developing his craft in his home shed, and sharing it only with family and friends. But the village of Bowmore was expanding, and had recently been named the capital of Islay when Simson landed here. So he decided to go pro. He built the island’s first distillery in 1779, and began distilling whiskey full-time. He sold and traded his casks to sailors and merchants who brought it the mainland, and then shipped it on to Europe. Most mainland Scots, Brits and Europeans had never tasted Islay whiskey, and Simson’s Bowmore brand’s unique and rich character stood out. Simson didn’t know it yet, but Islay whiskey was beginning to go global.

Soon after, James Mutter took over the distillery and expanded its operations. In addition to being a distiller and farmer, Mutter was a vice-consul to Portugal, Brazil, and the Ottoman Empire in Glasgow, so he was in a unique position to build his brand internationally. The distillery didn’t change hands again until 1887, and it was sold once more in 1963 to a man named Stanley Morrison. Morrison renovated the original distillery, but he didn’t modernize production. While many in the spirits industry began to replace people with machines, and tailored production schedules to profit margins, Morrison wisely respected the traditional hand-worn methods that made Bowmore great.

Chief among them is the laborious process of malting barley by hand. At Bowmore the grain is steeped in big malt barns, and hand churned by a trained Maltman every four hours for a week. The Maltman uses a wooden shovel, so the flavor remains pure. The barley is then dried using peat smoke. That smoke, and the local Laggan River water combine to give Islay whiskey its earthy richness.

Bowmore offers five different varieties of single malt. The warm amber colored, Bowmore 12, is aged for 12 years. It’s sweet and smoky with a twist of lemon on the nose, and it is warm and chocolaty on the palate. Bowmore 15 is aged three more years, which deepens the color. It has a smoky and dark chocolate tinged aroma, and it tastes of cedar wood and toffee when you swirl it. 18 years in oak brings hints of toffee to the nose of Bowmore 18, along with ripe fruit. Its flavor is incredibly complex and grows on the palate from soft fruit to dark chocolate, and it finishes with a light touch of peat smoke. Bowmore 25 is the color of deep mahogany. It smells of sherry, stewed fruit, and a trace of smoke. The mellow flavor blends toffee and hazelnut, and after 25 years the peat smoke flavor is barely a memory on the tongue. You may find special and limited editions of Bowmore available on the auction block. Bowmore 1957, distilled 50 years ago, is one example. It remained in oak, breathing Islay’s sea air for 38 years before it was bottled straight from the barrel. Only four casks and 861 bottles were ever produced.

No matter which variety you choose, know that Islay whiskey is strong and bitter, and is an acquired taste. But if you add a touch of spring water to your glass, the flavor mellows, and what you first thought of as harsh becomes surprisingly smooth. Ask a local what to pair Bowmore with and you may get this reply, “Whiskey goes with every sort of food, even down to puddin’.” [That's desert to you and me]. But such quips don’t come from a lack of sophistication, they are borne from a pride in tradition and craftsmanship that has made Islay scotches the best-drinking whiskey on earth.