A Walk On Islay

If whisky is a religion, then the island of Islay off the southwest coast of Scotland is its Rome, its Mecca, its Jerusalem. As with any religion there are heretics. The heretics make their pilgrimages to the Spey valley in the northeast, or pehaps to the more accessible parts of the Highlands, or, if they are deeply apostate, to - shudder - Louisville, Kentucky. These heretics tend to be peatophobes and harbour false and misguided views about the nature of peat in Islay whiskies.

There are two important things to know about those of us who orient to Islay. The first is that liking peat does not necessarily mean liking monstrous quantities of peat. A well-crafted peated Islay has just enough. A good analogy comes from the beer world - you may enjoy the flavour of hops but find the idea of some of the new wave of hipster IPAs with 600+ IBUs repellent (IBU = "international bittering units", 40 to 60 IBU is a more traditional level). Or, for the non-beer drinkers among you, a simpler analogy is dessert. You may love the sweetness of a slice of pie, but do you want dump another three or four tablespoons of sugar onto it?

The second important thing to know about people who enjoy a little peat is that we do not refer to ourselves as the opposite of peatophobes. Say "peatophile" out loud and you'll see why.

Peatiness in whisky is more difficult to quantify than bitterness in beer. This is because the burning of peat to dry the barley infuses the malt with an incredible number of different molecules that can then be detected in the whisky that is ultimately produced. The most prominent of these though is phenol, so the level of phenol in parts per million (ppm) is used as a very rough measure of "peatiness". The peatiest scotch is reputed to be the Bruichladdich Octomore at 169 ppm. This would be too peaty. A new wave hipster scotch, if you will. The whiskies we tasted tonight ranged from 30 to 55 ppm. This is just right. The Goldilocks zone for peat. By way of comparison most Speysides are in the 2 to 7 ppm range. And bourbons are 0. Obviously.

So what's with the walk in the title? It's a Cabinet tradition. Every now and again we will dress up an evening's tasting with a virtual "walk" between the distilleries courtesy of Google Streetview. Tonight's walk was perhaps a bit unrealistic though. Our stocks dictated that we visit Caol Ila, in the north of the island, and Laphroaig and Ardbeg on the south coast. The latter two are only a 3.5 km stagger apart, but to get there from Caol Ila would involve a 33 km traverse across trackless moors and hills. Consequently I offered the members a virtual sail as well.

Six paragraphs in and still nothing about the whiskies we tasted, which is presumably why you're reading this. My apologies. I confess that I delayed in part because I find whisky writing to be annoying, so I often only add my contributions to the online stew of adjectives with great reluctance. Increasingly it is my aim to simply let you know whether it is worth trying a whisky or not, and possibly how hard you should try to find it, and then let you sort out for yourself what you are tasting - be it "sweet beef jerky", "wet sea grass", "applewood smoked ham", "lemon peels at the harbour"(?), "flowering currants", "Black Forest honey", or "sophisticated tar"(??)... All these descriptors, and oh so many more, of tonight's whiskies can be found online on prominent review sites.

What then did we taste and what do we recommend?

Caol Ila 12 year old (30 ppm, 43%):
Good, must try. (= "Three Drams" in our "honest whisky rating" scheme, which runs from "No Drams - Avoid at all costs" to "Four Drams - Go out of your way to find")

Laphroaig Cairdeas (40 ppm, 57.2%):
Good, must try.

Laphroaig Quarter Cask (40 ppm, 48%)
Good and must try as well, although most of us prefered to Cairdeas as a bit more complex and with a longer finish.

Ardbeg Uigeadal (55 ppm, 44.2%)
Excellent. To be honest, we didn't actually vote on any of these as we were enjoying ourselves too much, so these ratings are a guess on my part. That being said, all of us did really love the Uigeadal, so although "Four Drams / Excellent" ratings are extremely rare for us, this would likely qualify or be very close.

Having four whiskies that are all recommended and all rated at least good is exceptional. It was an exceptional evening, enhanced by brilliant company, smoked goldeye (a fish), good cheese and an abundance of crackers...

Slainte!