Whether you are a whisky enthusiast or just enjoy the occasional dram, a visit to a whisky distillery to see at first hand how your favourite single malt is crafted from the natural ingredients of the Scottish landscape, can be both memorable and enjoyable. Islay is the Southernmost of the Western isles and well worth a visit just for the scenery alone, but there are no fewer than eight distilleries to visit, producing some of the best single malt whisky.

It is not difficult to find excellent accommodation on Islay and at Bowmore distillery they even have their own holiday cottages where you can stay and enjoy a complementary tour of the distillery and sample their excellent single malt whisky. There are 130 miles of beautiful coastline, around which seven of the distilleries are sited. The inhabitants number approximately 3500 and there is a strong community spirit. There are a number of festivals throughout the year including the festival of Malt and Music in May, which celebrates the rich heritage in Whisky production on Islay.

The first record of whisky making in Scotland goes back to 1494 and is thought to have been started by Irish monks. Many of the distilleries started out as farms where home stills were used to produce grain spirit. The process of distilling began after the harvest and continued until late April This cycle has continued down the centuries, and even today many of the distilleries are closed in August for the ’silent season’.

Bowmore Distillery has been producing whisky on the shores of Loch Indaal since 1779 and is one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland. Up until the 1950s the whole process of malting, fermenting and distilling was carried out on site but now only a handful of distilleries including Bowmore still do this. Bowmore Distillery was established in 1779 and is Islay’s oldest legal distillery. It was expanded in 1937 by William and James Mutter and then rebuilt by Stanley Morrison who acquired it in 1963. After being part owned by a Japanese company, the present owners are Morrison Bowmore Distillers who purchased the distillery outright in 1994.

A single malt whisky is the product of a single distillery and no two distilleries produce the same flavour and body. The distilleries to the south of Islay produce the most powerful medium bodied flavours with the use of the islands peat water for every stage of production, and those to the north produce much milder flavours since they use clear spring water. Bowmore is in the middle of the island and the flavour it produces comes between the two extremes having a warm smoky character with peaty, toffee flavours and some floral scents and traces of linseed oil.

The quality of Islay whisky is strongly influenced by the sea spray that sweeps across the island with the winter gales, and sinks through the heather into the peat. Bowmore distillery takes its water from the pure source of the Laggan River which flows down from the mountains carrying with it the rich flavours and colouring from the peat as it goes.

The traditional practice of floor malting the barley is dying out and Bowmore distillery is one of only a few left where this is still carried out. The malt is first soaked for up to 72 hours to allow it to germinate and then drained, spread out over the malting floor and turned regularly by the Maltman with a traditional wooden shovel to release the heat. The malt is then transferred to the kiln which is fired by the Islay peat, for drying and roasting.

At Bowmore Distillery traditional methods are used by a very experienced team, most of whom have worked at the distillery for many years. Demand for Bowmore single malt whisky is high and it is exported to forty countries around the world. A bottle of Black Bowmore, distilled in 1897 was recently sold at auction for 1400. The whisky if left to mature in the famous Bowmore vaults where the damp cellars are below sea level, keeping them at a constant temperature the year round, stored in casks of Spanish and American Oak which adds to the rich mellow flavours of the maturing whisky. The workforce take great pride in the single malt whisky they produce and their constant efforts make Bowmore a world class dram.