Thinking of nipping over as flights are reasonable to do some visits to the whisky kings 😉 anyone had a trip over. What sort of time do the visits to each one take and how is the island for taxis or buses, owt else to do or should I just stick to to good stuff . Cheers
Oh is there any restriction on flights to what I can bring home , its only islay to Leeds so no proper border hopping lol
Thanks
As there is no border crossing your only difficulty with amount you can bring back is what you can get on to the plane. Do you really need to buy from the distilleries? I know that it's nice to do business there and then but certainly Bruichladdich, Ardbeg, laphroig and Bowmore all have shops on their website, so you could perhaps just buy a selection of miniatures for convenience and online purchase big bottles from home.
Just an idea.
Me and a mate did a motorbike tour up through the west coast of Scotland 3 years ago and unfortunately due to ferry timings we didn't actually get to Islay due to time constraints. Very disappointing.
I got a ferry from Arran to Islay and stayed a couple of nights in B&B's. Took a tour round the Bowmore distillery which was interesting as it's the only one I've seen where they still smoke their own barley rather than getting another company to do it. Also took the island bus down for a tour of Ardbeg which had recently been done up. Good tour and the guide gave us 30 mins with a bottle of 25 year old, also got a taste of the raw spirit as it was going into a barrel.
This was about ten years ago but can't imagine it has changed that much.
Cheers chaps the bringing little bottles back is a thought , unless I see some rare ones lol
AFAIK the prices at the distilleries are always higher than you would pay from a specialist online like Royal Mile Whiskys or The Whisky Shop. Don't let that put you off going - just work out what you like from the tastings and then buy when you get back.
Another alternative would be to do the Strathspey distilleries. More of them, more to do in the area and more accomodation and eating choices. Fly to Aberdeen
Either way, rent a car or you will spend 80% of your time waiting for buses in the rain
Went over Oct 2009 and did Laphroaig, Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Bruichladdich and Caol Ila tours (also visited Bowmore for tasting but didn’t get to look round as we were too late). Did these over two days with a mate after getting the ferry across on our bikes and staying at a B&B. As the island is small you can get around fine biking and as such I have no knowledge of public transport except for a late night ride back from a pub in a local taxi.
All the tours were good with plenty of tasting, although my favourite was the Laphroaig tour.
I did my uni geology field mapping project on Islay, camped within 100m of Bunnahabhain distillery. 6 months later I was living in USA, and the local liquor store sold Bunnahabhain for half the price it was on Islay 🙁
Have a look at The Scotch Malt Whisky Society's Unfiltered magazine. Page 26 of this month's issue has a feature on what to do on Islay.
Online version is here - [url=[url= http://www.smws.co.uk/your-society-adventure/unfiltered-magazine ]Unfiltered magazine[/url]]Unfiltered[/url]
Cheers chaps
Laphroaig has the novelty of being able to collect a certificate if you have already registered a bottle in the past, I regreted not using one of their more elaborate title options such 'His Royal Highness' or 'Bishop'. We spent a few days their in the camper a few years ago and did the Laphroaig tour which was good but just like Talisker & Glen Ord. I worked for a brewery and showed clients around a lot times and I am a bit jaded and tend to think if you've seen one...
You will get much cheaper whisky in the supermarket on special offer.
Taxi's seemed to be ferrying tourists around quite regularly.
If you had the bikes I would have highly recommended a trip to Jura it is a gem. To this day though I have no idea how thousands of midges got into the camper in the middle of the night but it woke us up and we saw two sea otters running along the beach and a herd of deer paddling in the sea (camping at the airfield). Having spent over 100 nights touring the west coast I can say that Jura is up their with the worst highland midges it is not in Keilder's league though.
I've not done the distillery tour but at Bruichlaiddich I had some generously large samples to try in the shop. While there I bought a half bottle of 17yr old which I've not seen in the shops in Edinburgh.
The night before visiting the distillery I was in the pub at Portnahaven just a few miles down the road. It's a very good place to sample a few different whiskies - very knowledgeable. I mentioned an interest and soon the bottles were coming out and I was learning about different types of casks, ages etc.