Islay Single Malt Scotch: Doing Craft the Hard Way

August 12
47 mins

Episode Description

Islay has about 3,000 people and ten whisky distilleries — an absurd ratio, even by Scotland's standards.


In this episode, I take a ferry, then a bus, then another bus, to talk to Adam Hannett, Master Blender at Bruichladdich, about peat, patience, and why he thinks whisky has terroir — something I went in fully prepared to argue against.


We get into rebuilding a distillery from scratch, tracing barley back to twenty individual farms, and why decisions made today won't pay off for another decade.


By the end, I was ready to book a very inconvenient ferry back.

Transcript and show notes available at betweendrinks.co/singlemalt

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