Day Two: LK's First Distillery

Our second day on Islay had an adventurous itinerary - we were touring the Bowmore distillery in the morning, driving about 15-20 minutes to Port Ellen and then doing an all afternoon Water to Whisky tour at Laphroaig  The plan was then to stumble the mile or so back to our hotel and try not to die of alcohol poisoning. The weather forecast was, as it was for almost every day on Islay, around 60 degrees with an intermittent chance of rain.

There's no gray hoodie or white warehouse, but it'll do. 

Bowmore Distillery was the first legal distillery on Islay. This does not mean, as I was told, that they were anywhere near the first people making whisky on Islay, simply that they were the first to decide that the price of taxation was an acceptable toll to pay to avoid the risk of arrest. To me, every distillery we visited had a distinct personality. Bowmore seemed to embrace the nautical theme more than even the other Islay distilleries, and, like its sister distillery Auchentoshen, had a bit of a clean lined, modern, IKEA sort of feel about it.

The distillery tour was interesting. If you want to learn how whisky is made, you'd have a better time either visiting a distillery yourself or just googling the process. However, I've included some pictures of the interior, because, as I found, all distilleries are simultaneously quite similar and quite different.

Bowmore was not producing when we visited. They take four (I think?) weeks off for the "silent season" in the summer. This gives their water supply time to refresh and allows for maintenance and general cleaning to be done on their machines. It's also not a bad time to schedule it since most of their staff gets to go on summer holiday.

Overall, Bowmore was a great first distillery. The whisky was palatable, the tour guide was friendly and the facilities were well kept and picturesque.

At the end of the tour, we were taken into a lounge, where E took some pictures. Although I didn't realize it at the time, this orange-y color scheme was echoed in Auchentoshen. We also saw a bottle of whisky worth 100,000 British pounds. At first, I sort of scoffed at it as a vanity sort of thing, but apparently 12 such bottles were produced and several had already been sold, so, if there's a market... 

The Bowmore whisky lounge 

I love old maps. 

100,000 pound whisky. As of this writing, that's $155,730 US 

Bowmore did not allow us to take pictures in the warehouse, which was a shame, but it was a dark room that smelled delicious and was full of casks. You can probably imagine it fairly well (or just pretend it's one of the many other warehouse pictures that you'll see later).