Some fifteen years ago, an occasional whisky drinker – one familiar with Bell’s, the Famous Grouse, and little else – was blindfolded by a friend, and asked to identify a particular beverage. He took a mouthful, looked puzzled for a moment, then screwed up his face in a rictus of disgust, and spat it out into the sink. “That’s TCP!” he exclaimed indignantly.
But no. Far from being an antiseptic, it was in fact Laphroaig, the biggest selling of all Islay malt whiskies.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. I just made that up. But if it’s not true, it should be. Because Islay whiskies – especially those from the south of the island – taste so different from other Scotches that the untutored palate might be forgiven for failing to identify them as whisky at all.
Malts and blends
There is among Scotch whiskies a fundamental distinction between malts and blends. Whisky is made from barley, the best of which is set aside by distilleries for the process known as malting – a means of reducing the grain to its prime whisky-making ingredient. All whiskies contain malt, but the blends – Bell’s, Famous Grouse, Teacher’s, Grant’s, and so on – also include whole grain.
Malt whiskies contain only malt, and, unlike blends, are made in their entirety at one distillery, the name of which they usually take. Their undoubted superiority is reflected in their price: the most exclusive malts are many times as expensive as the blends with which most are familiar.
Islay
Scotch whisky is made throughout the Scottish highlands and islands, but the most distinctive by far is that made in the eight distilleries – one for every four hundred of the population – on the isle of Islay. Known as the Queen of the Hebrides, Islay (pronounced like “island” without the “nd”), is the southernmost of the Inner Hebrides.
It enters history in the early eighth century with Adomnan’s Vita Columbae, the original source for the life of St Columba, the Irish monk who passed through Islay on his way to Iona in the sixth century. By this time, the island had been inhabited for some ten thousand years. A number of carved standing stones bear witness to the island’s prehistory.
The Gulf Stream ensures mild winters and pleasant summers, and the island is a favourite tourist resort, its administrative centre of Bowmore making an excellent base. Since Atlantic gales can make the winters problematic, sometimes disrupting air and sea links to the mainland, summer is the best time to visit.
Islay malts
There is no mistaking Islay malt whisky. It may take a connoisseur to distinguish between, say, a Speyside Scotch from the north-east of Scotland, and a Cambeltown Scotch from the south-west; the average whisky drinker may not always find it easy to tell the difference between a malt and a blend. But no one with the normal complement of taste buds could possibly fail to identify an Islay malt such as Laphroaig or Lagavulin.
It’s in the soil, you see, because Islay is rich in sea-soaked peat, which is dug from the ground much like turf and used as fuel once it has been dried. Peat fires are used to dry Islay’s malted barley, imparting to the whisky a taste often described as medicinal. It’s the peat, then, which makes it taste of TCP – and also of smoke.
According to a frequently-told tale – hard to verify, but quite possibly true – Laphroaig whisky was legally imported into the United States during Prohibition in the 1920s: it was considered a medicinal spirit.
Not exactly appealing, is it? Who could possibly enjoy a drink which smells and tastes of smoke and antiseptic, and is easily mistaken for medicine? And there is no doubt that an Islay whisky such as Laphroaig is a taste which some will never acquire. But those who do will always relish it.
Iain Manson - A Life – of Sorts Born in 1950 of a Scottish father and a Welsh mother, Iain Manson was brought up in Scotland, and graduated ...
