Father,

I'm writing this blog entry to you in particular as an explanation of the four bottles you'll be getting in the mail shortly. Today was the Islay (AI-luh) distillery tour, and I hope you'll partake of and share the fruits of my search rather than hoarding them away or saving them for my return.

First stop was Laphroig distillery. They're the first east out of Port Ellen, and I've enjoyed them before as the sweetest, easiest to find, and most economical of the south Islay single malts. It may also be the best to tour, as it turns out that they're only one of a half-dozen that still prepare even a portion of their own barley on site, while the other brands have gone over to giving a recipe to Port Ellen Malts or another preparer. After touring there, I went a mile down the street to Lagavulin (lah-gah-VOO-lin) for a second tour.

So we start off with raw barley. That gets soaked for a few days then spread out on a floor and turned to air it out three times or so a day, for the better part of a week. This starts the sprouting of the barley, converting more of the starch therein to sugary malt. The sprouted barley is then taken to a kiln and dried. This is where the Islay malts gain half their distinctive character, as they're smoked dry in a peat-fueled kiln. Off Islay, the use of peat is falling out of favor, and simpler whiskies whose sweetness is unmasked are the result. But the whole of Islay, outside the village of Bridgend, is made of peat. The water filters through it, and its smoke gives the local malts their distinctive flavor.

This is another spot where the character of Laphroig vs. Lagavulin distinguish themselves. Lagavulin is kiln dried over a mixture of top-cut and bottom-cut peat, both dried. Laphroig, on the other hand keeps their peat a bit more damp to bring out that much more smoke as it burns.

The kiln-dried grains go through a double grinder to reduce them to grist, and the proportions are checked to make sure that the correct balance of husk, grit, and flour, and the proportions adjusted if they didn't come out correct on the first pass. This then gets soaked three times at different temperatures to extract the sugars and flavors. The first and second soakings are mixed together to make the wort, and the third soaking is sent back to the water tanks to return as the first soaking of the next batch of grist. What remains of the grist is sold off for cattle feed.

The wort is then piped to backwash tanks, where it ferments with yeast for a few days, ending as a peaty-flavored barley-beer. Here's the next difference between Laphroig and Lagavulin. Laphroig uses large steel drums to their backwash tanks. Lagavulin uses wooden tanks. The steel tanks are simple to clean, leading to a cleaner flavor, but the Lagavulin distillers swear by the added flavor their old fashioned wood tanks impart. I'm inclined to thin that what flavor the tanks add must be bacterial in nature like a sourdough, since any wood flavor that could soak out during the few days of fermentation would have extracted sometime in the past 60 years of the tanks' service.

Laphroig's washback tanks

... and Lagavulin's.

Then it's off to the stills for distillation. Half the stills receive the barley-beer, and distill it from 8% alcohol up to 24%, or "low wine" as it's known. This low wine is then fed into the second set of stills, known as 'spirit stills' where a second pass raises the alcohol percentage yet further. The first portion of this second distillation is too pure alcohol to make good scotch, and is recombined with the last part of the second distillation for a return trip to the spirit stills. The middle portion of the second distillation (or third or fourth or so on) is fed into used casks where it is aged prior to bottling.

Laphroig's stills continue to rise after the crook, resisting the inclusion of all but the lightest essences making their way into the spirits. This also draws out the distillation process, requiring Laphroig's spirits to be heated much longer than most others.

Lagavulin's still tops bend down in a sharp "swan's neck" to let through the heavier, nuttier flavors.

The cask-aging whiskey loses ~2% alcohol each year to evaporation through the wood even as it extracts the flavor and color of the cask. Choice of casks is important: All scotch is aged in casks that were previously charred and used for another spirit. Kentucky bourbon casks are held in high esteem, though sherry casks are favored when making sweeter scotches. Going into the casks, the scotch is clear as vodka. At the end of the aging process, the cask-strength whiskey, now caramel colored and oak flavored, is (usually) watered down to the desired concentration, bottled and sold.

And that's where scotch comes from.

You'll find two more bottles in the package: A small bottle of Caol Ila and a bottle of Bowmore (buh-MORE) Mariner.

Caol Ila is a closely allied distillery to Lagavulin, situated on the north side of the island across the straights from Jura. They're rarely seen in single malt form as most of their product is sold to whiskey blenders. The dirty secret is that a large portion of each bottle of Johnny Walker Black is Caol Ila.

The bottle of Bowmore "Mariner" is a last minute addition, since the bus stopped there for 20 minutes between Port Ellen and Port Charlotte. I asked the girl at the tasting counter for a recommendation, and that's what she handed me. It's a single malt the same as the rest of their product, though split between bourbon casks and sherry casks for aging, and recombined at the end. You should pick up the sweet sherry notes, along with the heavier bourbon notes. The Mariner bottles are a restricted run, and if you decide you like it the only place to find it other than their company store is at an airport's duty free.

Glossary:
Peat: An acidic soil made of decomposing animal and plant matter on the first step of a long journey into becoming coal. Dried, peat makes a good fuel whose smoke gives scotch one dimension of its flavor. Almost all of Islay is peat. It's good for burning and grazing livestock, but poor for farming.
Grist: The whole ground grain. For scotch, barley grist that is 20% husk, 70% grit, and 10% flour is desired.
Mash: The combination of grist soaking in water, from which the wort is strained.
Wort: The unfermented water extract of the grist that will be brewed into beer.
Low Wine: The result of the first distillation pass, a 24% alcohol solution.
Feints: The last portion of the second distillation process, too weak to sell as whiskey. It gets recombined with the first portion (which was too strong) and distilled again.
The Angels' Share: The 2% alcohol lost to evaporation every year of cask aging.