Islay Trip: day three: Bruichladdich tour (part 1)

The visit to Bruichladdich would be three fold. First a tour at 11, then a warehouse tasting at 12 and later the purchase of one of the Valinch bottles.

Our Tickets

We payed the tickets and the tour began. First up was the barley mill. The tour guide explained how we could take pictures of everything but any photos of her would mean an added £5,- . She was naturally kidding! But we got the message.

Mill and transport

Transport

The background of Bruichladdich was given. How it was set up by the Harvey brothers back in 1881. How the slope of the hill was used in order to use the natural flow of water through the buildings. The mill for the barley is the original one (minus spare parts and repairs). The steam engine that powered the belt was replaced by an electric motor, but other than that the whole place is original. I'm sure some of the wooden parts have been replace over the years but all in all it looks all very 1881-ish. Very cool indeed.

Mill

Mill

wooden parts

Victorian looking driver belt

There is a basked next to the mills to show the different stages of milling from barley to flour. The basked with flour was empty. It is emptied out by a lady who uses the Octomore barley for her bread! Would love to buy a loaf of that!!

Anyway, the flour/grist is moved to a container where it is contained until the container is emptied in the mash tun. I tried making another "contained" reference here by but I can't. Sorry.

Moving to the mash tun we learn that the cast iron mash tun is still in use even though modern regulations prescribe a stainless steal one. The mash tun predates the regulation. Hell it predates the invention of stainless steel! I wanted to ask of the rathe brown rusty looking cask iron is not a Health risk, but i didn't. It looked beyond further oxidation so I'm sure it's inert.

The blender was damaged during a particularly firm mash. It was out of commission for a lengthy time. The parts that are broken were replaced. This is where the legislation kicks in because the new parts do look rather stainless steel like. As an engineer I wanted to ask why the new parts were a round turned part and not milled in an square shape like the old ones. The fluid dynamics around a round part would be rather different to a square section. Wouldn't it adjust the blending function? I didn't ask. I'm sure it has something to do with available machines on Islay or just plain cost driven. I was pretty sure the tour guide would not know. Plus the answer is not important.

Blender

Since the mash tun is open the efficiency of the process is less. Also the temperatures used during mashing differ from the ones I noted at Ardbeg. Seems logical. A different set of conditions ask for a different set of process parameters. Mashing is done using two "waters". Ones the mashing is done the wort is move to a free clean wash back. A 3th and 4th water are added and kept as the 1st and 2nd water of the next mash. Next we moved to the next room.

Wash-back 2

The wash-back room where all the fermenting takes place.

Friend at the wash-backs

Selfie

There are six wash backs at Bruichladdich. All Douglas Fir wood. All pretty tall. I made a photo down to get the height, but in a photo you just loose the sense of depth. Our tour guide lifted some of the ends to see which tank was a what stage. The ones we looked in were producing lots of CO2 and thus alcohols. The fluids were happily bubbling away so to speak.

looking down the side of a wash-back

The lads at Bruichladdich don't work during the weekend so the tour guide explained that the time spend in a wash-back, for some of the production, is increased by 48 hours depending on when it's put in the wash-back. That doesn't sound rather consistent but there you have it. (If i misunderstood any of this I'm sure someone will correct me)

overview

We could smell the content. Our tour guide did not put her face in the hole like most of us did. To much CO2 she explained. So I scooped the smell with my arms. Got some frowns from the other people in the tour, but they started copying my approach and learned why I did so. The theory I got from my tour at Ardbeg the day before. Handy stuff.

I cannot remember if I had the same reaction to the beer like smell that I got at Ardbeg. I'm sure it had. I'm sure it had fruity malty cereal banana beer-like notes. I just can't remember as I am writing this weeks later (November 10th). Now I need to redo the tour and make notes! Darn!!

We were asked if anyone would have a taste. Are you kidding!? Bottle the stuff and sell it!! It's amazing tasting brew!! After the tour-guide put it down I snuck over and helped myself to another drink. Savouring the taste and smell as much as I could. Closing my eyes to lock out unneeded sensory input. Shame I can't remember! Me dork!

Looking at the still room we could see a familiar face. It was the Swedish tour guide Mia and her group. We waved.

Panorama

Panorama

On to the still room. There is a purpose build platform you can stand in to watch the room. Its safe during operation hours to stand there instead of walking between the operation. Clever stuff. Bruichladdich has 5 working stills. Two wash stills, two spirit stills and a Gin still called ugly Betty.

The Gin made at Bruichladdich is called "the botanist". All herbs that go into the Gin are on the wall on a big placard. We are told that when Jim McEwan made this Gin he was told that the maximum of herbs would should needs to be 5 maximum. So he put in 22. I have never took the time to understand Gin making but I will.

The process of whisky making was explained. How multiple distillations are sorted by different temperatures, cuts etc. I choose not to go into that to deeply since it's all very well documented on this Bruichladdich webpage https://www.bruichladdich.com/article/how-bruichladdich-islay-single-malt-scotch-whisky-made

reflection of me in the wash-still

We were free to take any photos we wanted of anything, so I did. I took some panoramas and detail photos. It gives a nice overview of the whole setup.

Selfie at the spirit safe. 

Round about this time a group of people walked in. I spotted Ailsa, the kind lady who had given me the laddiemp4 bottle as consolation for not being able to be at the live tasting of laddiemp4 that past Thursday. She was touring with guests and her family.

Making a cut

After pretending to make a cut and making selfies at the stills I thought i recognised Allan Logan, former mashman and now distillery manager, so I addressed him as such. I was close. It turned out the be mashman Graham Hayes. I knew that! Just tad dyslectic with names and faces.

Meeting a maker

He said he and Ailsa had recognised me as being iLaddie. Was I indeed? Yes I was/am! Great to meet one of the makers. Selfie time! We had a short but excellent talk. We shook hands and were both on our ways. We were off to the the laddie shop to start the 12:00 o'clock warehouse tasting!

That's for the next blog!

Islay Trip: Day three: RSPB Loch Gruinart

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Today's menu feature a visit to the Loch Gruinart, then a tour and warehouse tasting at the Bruichladdich distillery, a visit to the wool mill in Bridgend and getting back to the Ardbeg shop for some goodies. 

Eilidh welcomed us this morning with her typical heartwarming hospitality. What were we going to do she asked. We told our plans and she advised us to watch the weather. It was going to rain. It was supposed to have rained yesterday but somehow the clouds did not make it to the "Ardbeg" side of the island. She was right. It did rain when we started having coffee and eating out breakfast. No eggs for me today. Just salmon, toast, bacon, orange juice and coffee! Oh and some crushly with yogurt. 

Breakfast

Since the agenda shift, due to time zone differences, that had confused us yesterday I triple checked the tour times at Bruichladdich. If you're planning a trip and planning ahead by putting in meetings in your agenda, please check in what time zone you are planning those. Apparently the apple agenda shifts the meetings to the time zone you planned them in at the time you entered them. For me my appointments had shifted and hour because we went from Amsterdam CET to Islay time. If you have this issue when flying in from Australia you will be reminded 12 hours late, or early. Then you notice the obvious error. We were not going to be an hour early today! Plenty to see!

It would probably rain

We started out to the Loch Gruinart RSPB bird and nature reserve. Why? Because it's friggin beautiful! You can walk to several observation huts and look at the wildlife. There were loads of birds and highland cows, sheep etc.

We choose not to go all the way to Kilnave or Ardnave. Mainly because we had the thing with getting stuck in a ditch yesterday and we were not risking that again. If you have time though, do go up there as well. The beach is amazing. 

We drove, parked, walked to a hut. To our surprise we were not alone. There was a guy from the RSPB observing newly arrived barnacle geese. My friend is to birds what I am to whisky. The guy is a walking bird encyclopedia. Where I have apps for whisky on my phone, he has more for birds. The RSPB guy and my friend started talking shop. Hen Harriers this, Corncrake that, Lapwings, normal goose, geese, white fronted geese, white ass geese and more. The RSPB guy told is about the background of the loch. Had we seen the dike? What dike? Oh yeah! Now you mention it. Dutch immigrants had made a dike and farmed the dry land behind it. Funny even here we Dutch mess with nature. Just when the RSPB guy and my friend were starting to get in need of "a room", he went away.

Loch Gruinart RSPB

Loch Gruinart RSPB

We looked at the birds. Some of the species were pointed out to me. I know some of these birds rather well because in the nature reserve next to lelystad you can find them as well. 

We tried the bird call app. See if a natural enemy of these geese would send them flying the sound of a predator was broadcast. Nothing happened. The sound came from the wrong place and no predator silhouette could be seen in the sky. 

We completed the circular walk and spotted all kinds of plants, trees, etc. Beautiful. We had a short visit to the visitor Centre. If you are into birdwatching this is one of the places you need to go see when on Islay.

Just before going on to the next blog I would like to mention the excellent charity started by Ben Bowers for a children's heart surgery Hospital. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/adramaday

Islay Trip: day two: The Lochside Hotel

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Driving back to the hotel was a pleasure. The nature on Islay is absolutely stunning. Every other turn you are treated with a new kind of landscape. Along the coast are cliffs, sand beaches, stone/beaches. Up the hill are seemingly endless peat fields. The town of Port Ellen is a cute fisherman's Port. There is a boulevard you can stroll along. Past Port Ellen on the very strait road to Bowmore you can have a feel for peat. Peat, peat and more peat.

Ones in Bowmore we parked at the pier. Ok ok, it's a smallish pier, but pier sounds better than "rather long wall you can dock you boat at and walk on". Out of the car, collect our stuff and walk 40 meters to the hotel. We were greeted by the lady who had helped us getting our car out of the ditch. Had a good laugh. Dropped our stuff in our room and went down to the bar. Forget the bar, we were hungry. We sat down at a table and ordered a pint.

The glass it comes in confirms its a pint. I like the word pint. Pint is one of those measures of volume you have no clue about as a Dutchman unless you order it. So seeing a pint for what it is is fun. Just like a "dram" is a measure of volume. I also like the word pint because Merry, the Hobbit from Lord of the Rings, orders one at the inn of the prancing pony.

Eilidh brough us the menu. We told her about our day and how we ended up in a ditch. We had a good laugh. Time to look at the menu. Many things on the menu looked good. We needed meat.

I had the sirloin steak. Medium rare. With union rings. It went down very well indeed.

It was time to have coffee. We were introduced to Annie. She and Keith were working the bar that night. Somehow we went from "wow, you re tall", to showing the number in a passport, discussing how good the Dutch passport looks, to Annie getting her passport, to looking at all the stamps in her passport, to talking about her intended trip to Mexico, to talking about how Keith is going to Amsterdam, etc, etc.

This is when we met Roger. With Roger we discussed live, Brexit, medieval European history of Germany, why he was a mason, how he broke his back. We looked at the x rays, let him do bending of his back which he couldn't.

What did Roger do for work we asked. He is a charter plane pilot. Did he know Lelystad. (Where we live) Yes he did, he was even able to tell us the colour of our train station. We had to get the local Islay beer that he was drinking. No discussing it, it was obligatory! Good beer! He spend the next 30 mins finding out how much a flight would cost from lelystad to Islay, while at the same time talking to us. Explaining a drinking game, that we ended up doing. Something with guessing how many coins you hold behind your back and adding all the numbers. The aim was to get the looser, or winner, to pay the tab. We got 3 classic laddies. Roger was still finding out the cost of he flight.

So I showed roger the "band of gold" trick you can do with the 50% abv classic laddie. I added a very small amount of water to my glass, let the oils come out of alcohol solution, and made the band of gold appear. Right up till that point roger was looking at me if I was bonkers, but at least slightly nuts. When the band of gold appeared he was like "wow, I have never ever seen that before!!". I was a whizzard!

Roger took a moment to find out the cost for the charter flight. He gave us his card. When you are visiting Islay as a group we would indeed consider a charter next time. The cost is really not that bad. Save a hell of a lot of time too.

A guy come to the bar looking all Scottish in new tweeds. He was a Swedish guy. He had spend "some money" at the wool mill that day. He was send to the bar to get beers. He ended up talking to us instead and drinking a beer with us. He forgot getting the beers for the group. Great guy.

This is when we sorta bumped into Mia, the Swedish tour guide, from Sweden, that was touring Swedish people around Islay. Mia was apparently somewhat of a celebrity on Islay. She is a red head. We started talking and soon found out who was wearing the pants in this bar. Mia was! Mia turned out to be Keith's mom. Right. Sure. Go visit her site on http://skottlandsresor.se/

Mia had come to the bar to get drinks for the Swedish people, because the guy in tweets was taking to long. Now that she was engaged with Roger she needed to be reminded of that task as well. So she ordered beer.

The night went on with these kinds of frivolous meetings and conversations. At the end of the night Roger, Mia, my fiend and me spend a half hour outside having a dram. The good man Keith was kind enough to donate a laddie. Go Keith. We discussed the full moon, we discussed how Mia was doing her own tours at Bruichladdich. She was apparently the number one source of organised visitors. What were we going to do tomorrow she asked. We would visit a bird viewing place, Bruichladdich and the wool mill. Mia "asked" us to say hi to the owner. I say "asked" but I really mean "ordered" ;) I replied "yes mother". We laughed.

It was time for bed. We had had an excellent night!

Just before going on to the next blog I would like to mention the excellent charity started by Ben Bowers for a children's heart surgery Hospital. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/adramaday

Islay Trip: day two: Ardbeg Tour (part three)

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The next part of the "deconstructing the dram" tour is a warehouse tasting. Four samples of whisky are set out next to the three main drams of Ardbeg. The 10yo, uigeadail and corryvreckan.

The samples are all the cask strength versions of the main components that go into these drams.

The first is a bourbon matured one, the 10 yo. It is a blended malt of first and second fill bourbon matured spirits.

The first sample is a 2006 first fill bourbon matured dram at 58,3% abv. This dram is just over 10 years old and could have been part of the commercially sold 10 yo.

The second sample is a 2004 refill bourbon matured dram at 56,6% abv. This dram is over 12 years old. With all blended malts it's the youngest component in the dram that is the age statement you need to put in the label, if mentioned.

The idea behind these two drams is to allow the people on the tour to taste the difference between the component parts that makeup the 10 yo. The first sample had much more caramel/vanilla sweetness from the wood. the peat was a bit more profound compared to the more fruity nature of the second fill. Here there were orange citrus fruit influences. Some notes of banana. In the second sample the wood (oak) also was more noticeable. Not that the amount was more, just that the other components like caramel/vanilla were less pronounced allowing the wood influences to get noticed more.

What I learned firsthand (I had read and heard about it) from this tasting is that peat gets more subtle / subdued over a longer period of time. The strong wood influenced tastes of a first fill get less when the cask is used a second time. Ardbeg uses a system of painting the barrel ends to identify how many times the casks are used. No paint is first fill, white is second fill, dark is third fill.

I had a dilemma. I was driving and we were getting rather large servings of drams. What to do with the left over dram? We found a water bottle that was emptied and decided to use that as a container till we put it in a sample bottle. I had forgotten the sample bottles I had brought with me! So the first and second drams ended up being blended in unknown portions inside a water bottle. I know! Absolute blasphemy!

The tour guide and the people in the tour were looking at me like if I was totally bonkers by adding the left over dram to the blend in the water bottle. I felt for them, but I had no other option. Drive drunk or blend it. I choose blending it.

Dionne had brought crackers and flat water to clean our palettes. We used the time to get introduced and this was anecdote time for Dionne. Dionne told us about how the "boys" clean the wash backs by basically dangling in there. How the "boys" role the barrels. How the "boys" soak arriving bourbon, sherry etc casks in water to make sure they expand properly before being filled. How she herself dropped a very very expensive 1000 bottle exclusive bottling of a single cask, ending up with not 1000 numbered bottles but 999. Someone would not be getting the number they ordered. Apparently the manager had a good laugh at this. Dionne went on to explain what her favourite Ardbeg was. It was a dram named after the second smaller water source besides uigeadail.

The third sample is a 2005 sherry cask matured dram at 57,6% abv. I cannot remember if Dionne was able to inform us if it was an olorosso, px, fino or other kind of sherry. I had been hoping to learn this but either it wasn't told, or I forgot. What I do remember is the obvious influence of the "sherry". I asked if the notes of the sweetness were due to the sherry or to the wood. Unfortunately this was unknown. Maybe I'm too much a nerd in this issue, but I had hoped to learn this on this tour. Oh wait, Dionne said it was an olloroso cask. I remember because we asked how this could explain the sweetness since oloroso is as "dry" as it can get. I remember the guy from Sweden commenting this as well. So did the dude from the USA with the brewers background.

The left overs from this dram were added to my blend in the water bottle. Again frowns!

Dionne asked which one we liked best till now. The answers were different from person to person. My friend liked the more fruity refill bourbon over the more profound sherry and first fill ones. I must say I liked the second fill also over the other two, the first fill over the sherry. For me a first or second fill is more an every day dram over the more heavy sherry ones that fit less occasional times to drink it like Christmas or a birthday during the month with an r.

The final and forth dram was a 2005 French oak matured dram at 55,6 % abv. The group responded very well to the more spicy taste you get from French oak. This is the main component of corryvreckan. When asked what the combination of cask would be for any of the drams we tasted Dionne informed us she couldn't tell us.

Like before this one was added to the water bottle too.

We were done. The tour was over. Or so we thought. Dionne informed us that as an added bonus we could choose a final dram from one of the following drams:
- Ardbeg Galileo
- Ardbeg alligator
- Ardbeg something
- Ardbeg Ardbog
- Ardbeg supernova 2014
- Ardbeg dark cove
She explained what these drams were. What the occasion was when and why they were created. I did not make notes!! I'm an idiot.

My friend and I choose the supernova. I think. Could be the Ardbog. Can't remember! Lol. I think we choose the supernova because there was white in the label. I was getting to intoxicated to really enjoy this dram and still be back at the hotel before dark. There are no light beside the roads on Islay and I did not want to drive at night with any level of alcohol in me. So I did what I did with the other drams. Yes, I added it to my water bottle.

We now have about 10 cl of a totally unique Ardbeg cask strength blended malt! We will make time to nose, taste and enjoy the f#%k out of this delight! Will blog about it!

That done we went back to the shop. Asked for a coffee and sat there with a smile on our face. We took about half an hour for the coffee. Fitted some of the larger female sizes for Ardbeg polo shirts and discovered I'm to large/big/tall. Why did I fit the female polo? The men's were all sold! Bugger! Lol!

Well, that was that, we turned of the lights so to speak. Everyone was gone. Heading home. Oops! Forgot to pee! Lets stop at laphroaig and find a tree! So we did. We headed back to the hotel for dinner and what would turn out to be one very interesting and most enjoyable night at the bar! More on that in part two or the lochside hotel blogs!

Just before going on to the next blog I would like to mention the excellent charity started by Ben Bowers for a children's heart surgery Hospital. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/adramaday

Action points: find out why peat gets more subdued over time. Do the chemicals that make up thepeat desolve, react or break down with time?

Islay Trip: day two: Ardbeg Tour (part two)

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Thank you for reading this blog! All my posts have been copied to Wordpress.

Tour Ticket

Describing how a tour at Ardbeg is is like asking "what's that rollercoaster like"? The coaster is always there and there are some variations between the days and who operates the ride. Like a rollercoaster making whisky is a process of repetition. The same goes for tours. If I write it down like that than it sounds all wrong, but all process based quality driven processes allow for very small tolerances in order to get the quality needed and expected.

The variable in a tour is the person giving the tour and the persons on the tour. What are the backgrounds of these people and how does the interaction influence the outcome. What I'm trying to say is that these are my experiences and when (not if) you are visiting the experience will be different for you!

One of the variables is me and this variable had let his battery of his phone go dead just at the beginning of the tour!! Nooooo!! Luckily I brought a camera and so did my fiend. Tip: check your batteries.

Why had I chosen the "deconstructing the dram" tour. I have been trying to figure out by tasting, reading, studying where flavour components in a dram come from. How are these flavours what they are? The tour, that would give me some of the information i wanted out of my trip to Islay, was this one.

Our Tour Guide

The tour started off with a sit-down in a reception kind of area. General background about Ardbeg was given but also information about components in a dram and how they translate to a smell/flavour. It was explained that Ardbeg is able to breakdown a dram into component parts using mass-spectrography.

Image by Cool Hunting : http://www.coolhunting.com/food-drink/ardbeg-whisky-distillery-visit

The tour goes to at the mill where the barley is milled. Details are given about the amount of barley, the stages of milling and the final composition of the solids in the mash. I had always thought that only the fine "flour" would go into the mash, but apparently the mixture is a combination of different stages of milling from grist to flour. We tasted and smelled the un-milled barley. I have saved some for later to take my time to really taste.

Dionne, our tour-guide, explained the process in detail. How a fixed amount of milled barley is sifted and weighed in order to get the right mixture of components. I really need to think hard how this worked again, but I will probably remember when watching the photos. Everything gets recorded. Not only for internal process efficiency calculations (alcohol per ton barley ratio) but also for legal purposes. Tax and stuff.

So Dionne made us remember the amount of tons of barley that went in the mill for future reference. Naturally I can't remember! Lol! It's not really that important. What I take with me is that the "mash-bill" of Ardbeg is different compared to the "mash-bill" of, for instance, Bruichladdich. This mash-bill works for Ardbeg! This is the unique beginning of their process. Just like a mash-bill at a bourbon would contain fixed amounts of corn, Ardbeg milled their barley to a combination that works for them. The milled barley is transported to the next stage of the process.

Stainless steal vat

Mashing at Ardbeg takes place in a large covered stainless steel vat. The milled barley is mixed with different temperature waters at different points in time. This is to extract as much barley sugars and other congeners as one can. (At the Bruichladdich distillery i learned they used different temperatures and heating times). I stuck my face in and withdrew it immediately. This steam is HOT!

The water is from Islay. It is collected form the Uigeadall and another lake. This explained one of the names of the core expressions of Ardbeg.

Me in front of a wash back

The product of this process is moved to a free wash back, where the yeast can do it's thing. We were allowed to "smell" different stages of this process by putting out arms in the wash back and spooning the air. The smell sticks to your arm and this can be smelled better than just sticking your head in the wash back. It felt weird, but it worked.

It smelled fruity, peaty and malty. It also had a beer-like smell to it in a way. It's great to experience this and let your nose do its job. I spooned the wash back as often as I could in an attempt to get as much smell in my brain as I could. Unfortunately you cannot bottle this. You have to be there. The wash backs are steam cleaned after use in preparation for the next batch.

Next Dionne asked of we would like to taste the wash. Are you kidding? YES!! It tasted like a fruity beer. I hinted on banana on the nose. This taste I tried as often as I was able too. Keep it in my mouth for as long as I could. Closing my eyes. Fruity, banana. The other taste must be malted barley and yeast as main components. What else could it be! Loved this experience!

Dionne did a alcohol gravity measurement and together with the numbers collected at the milling she was able to calculate the alcohol to barley ratio. I will have to look that one up again and describe it better. It made sense.

No pictures beyond this point

Behind the point of the door we were not allowed to photograph the stills. So we all photographed before going thru the door. The explanation was safety related. Just like a gas station you don't want to be blown up by alcohol vapours igniting.

The process was explained. The distilled liquid before the first cut is made is collected for re-use.

We were waiting for the operator to make the first cut. He did. We applauded! It felt nice!

The feints are also collected and redistilled at the next run. I wont give much detail here about the distillation process. The general principle is well documented. The one thing that makes the process unique for Ardbeg is a junction downwards in the beginning of the line arm that feeds back the heaviest alcohols into the still.

What surprised me is that there is no difference in this process for any of the Ardbeg expressions. All are produced in the same way. Only the casks make the difference between the final products. I did not expect that, but this entire process up to this point is a constant. This I find particularly interesting because it means that the flavour differences between Ardbeg expressions only can be explained by the casks and the time spend in the casks.

The produce of this process is transported to the area where the casks are filled. Not all casks are matured at the Ardbeg location, but a lot of them are and Ardbeg was working on expanding the local capacity.

The filling station

We were NOT able to taste a sample of the new make spirit. A sample did NOT go from hand to hand. We were NOT able to nose and taste the fruity, malty, high alcohol, peaty smelling liquid! I did NOT have a recognition with other new make spirits I have tasted before. Other new make I have had has similar fruity, banana like nose. the beer like smell of the wash had gone and the peaty smell was more present. Strong but not with an alcohol burn. Well distilled new make! Which I did not smell or taste ;)

Next was a moment to get a photo of yourself and the Ardbeg sign! If we wanted to have our picture taken ...

Happy Campers

On to the warehouse tasting for the next part of this blog.

Warehouse

Just before going on to the next blog I would like to mention the excellent charity started by Ben Bowers for a children's heart surgery Hospital. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/adramaday

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/adramaday