food for thought

Grab a dram, I'm gonna wax poetic on ya'.
Consider this...10, 12, 15 years ago (18, 21?...lucky you) the whisky in your glass was a plant, struggling in the soil for survival, seeking out its own water of life. Barley. If lucky, it experienced the right environmental conditions to grow into a strapping young kernel. If not, then it returned to the soil to help nourish the next lucky one. But it was a living thing nonetheless.

All too often we disregard the history of the food we put into our mouths in order to nurture our bodies. If we considered where our food comes from a little more, then perhaps we'd be less inclined to mistreat the gardens of our very existence, the air, water, and soil which give us life. You'd better take a sip, I think I'm getting too melodramatic here.

Back to the barley. It never ceases to amaze me that whisky is just that, plus water and yeast, which is also a living thing. And if you want to get really metaphysical, so is water. In the end, is it any wonder that whisky gained its name from the Gaelic term uisge beatha, itself descended from the Latin meaning "water of life".

There aren't many distilleries which are able to facilitate the entire cycle of whisky making from barley to bottle. Many don't strive to, but some make it a part of their mission statement. It takes a lot of homegrown barley to satisfy an entire mashbill. Even small distilleries like Kilchoman on Islay only presently grows 30% of their own, and they don't (yet) have a bottling facility. The young Abhainn Dearg on the west coast of Lewis is giving it a go, if the Atlantic lets them. Not sure how much Islay barley Bruichladdich manages to bring in, but they may be the closest to the goal, even though they don't malt at the distillery.

So, this blog entry is in celebration of the lowly barleycorn, that often overlooked but essential first component that is the root of all whisky, from which all our drams stem, the seeds of our mal(t)content...OK, OK, here are the photographs.

The top one is harvested Bruichladdich barley. How do I know it was destined for the Laddie? I tasted a few grains left in the field which the birds hadn't gotten to and compared it to the new make I had just tasted at the distillery and...well, OK, I just read the sign on the fencepost which said so. The other image is what's left of a field of Golden Promise barley (what a great name) grown for the Macallan. No telling fencepost sign, but the folks at the distillery.

Here, Islay birds feast on what John Barleycorn didn't get.

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a couple of my faves

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. My first steps will be about two of my personal favourite single malts, Bruichladdich and Laphroaig. Both distilleries are on the Isle of Islay, part of the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of mainland Scotland. Maybe someday I'll put up a map of Scotland and all her distilleries, or find a link to a good one...remind me, would you please?

The Laddie is on the west coast of Loch Indaal, in the village of and just north of the Bruichladdich pier from which this photo is taken. Loch Indaal is a long and fairly wide body of water, open to weather coming from the southwest across the North Channel from Ireland and the Atlantic. The distillery and warehouses are situated just across the road from the loch.

Laphroaig is on the south coast of Islay, sheltered somewhat by Laphroaig bay. I say somewhat because it can still get lashed quite severely by storms blowing in from the southwest. It has warehouses directly on the shoreline.

I'll be highlighting distilleries in no particular order and will be putting up photos on an irregular basis, especially if I revisit the distillery in the future, so please don't hesitate to return.

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welcome

Go to Scotland. It's a beautiful place with lots to offer. In 2001 my father and I made our first trip there together built around single malt Scotch whisky. I chose the distilleries to visit and dad had fun creating the itinerary and making all the necessary arrangements. We've been doing that almost every year since.

The focus of this blog is to share some of the photographs I've taken in and around those distilleries. According to the Scotch Whisky Association website there are 148 working distilleries in Scotland as of March 2024, and there are more in the works. Just as some folks get a kick out of "bagging munroes" (adding to their list of Scottish mountains they've climbed), I've got quite a few more visits to make to get anywhere near bagging them all. And as you'll see, there's more than just Scotland here.

I hope you'll enjoy the ongoing journey with me. It's been a blast so far.

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