Our third and final Fèis Ìle competition is the big one – a chance to not only win a full 50cl bottle of Caol Ila from That Boutique-y Whisky Company, but to be immortalised on their next cultish comic book style-label: a Laphroaig single malt!

We’ve heard on the grapevine that a Dr. E. Brown of Hill Valley sent out 12 messages in bottles, which are due to wash up on the shores of Islay in just a couple of days! Some crazy stuff on that grapevine, I can tell ya!

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It’s a scary place, the brain of Ben.

It consists mainly of Alan Partridge and Father Ted episodes, cocktail recipes, and rain-man-esque recall of horsepower and torque figures for most production cars. There’s also usually something in there about whisky.

What I can tell you about the brain of Ben though, is that these Boutique-y whiskies have recently been upgraded from ‘a bit of fun’, to ‘something with a lot of potential’.

Because of this, you’re going to see a pretty decent number of new releases from brand spanking new distilleries over the next few weeks / months, and if the results of some of the recent whisky auctions are anything to go by, I think we’ll see them selling out in pretty short order.

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This is (at this stage) just a rumour.

But there are rumours, and there are rumours. I’d be inclined to say that I’m probably over 90% that this is happening.

I’ve now heard sufficient rumblings about it to make me comfortable in simply repeating what I can already find online (including a rather marvellous entry from the state of Florida that’s clearly more focused on freedom of information than Ardbeg’s Brand agency).

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We’ve been back for a couple of weeks now and we’re slowly beginning to feel human again after the rigours of our ten days on Islay.

This year’s Feis Ile was quite an experience, from the fabulous food at the Lagavulin dinner to partying with the Balvenie boys, Cask Strength, et al in our very own hot tub.

Since we’ve been back, we’ve also been enjoying the entries to our competition, some of which I have peppered throughout this post.

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Wellity, wellity, wellity…as you may have read yesterday, our day began with the Balvenie Boys driving the Malt Mobile away from the Master of Malt cottage at 6.30am with minimal protest from me. It shall surely end with a dip in the hot tub.

Our day officially began at around 10am, with Ben rousing us by shouting, ‘wake up!’ all throughout the house. I did not find this pleasing. Justin had spent the early morning hours hoovering some foxy midges that had managed to creep their way into his bedroom, but didn’t seem to worse for the wear. More...

So – it’s that time of year again - Feis Ile time.

We went along for the first time last year, and despite several fates befalling us which wouldn’t have seemed out of place in the bible*, it was an absolutely awesome holiday strictly work-related event. 

As a result, we’ve decided to go back again this year, en-masse for the full 8 days of the festval, starting next Saturday (26th May) and ending the Saturday after.

Magic happens on the darkest night according to Bowmore, and to prove it the company recently employed some of the dodgiest Scottish accents in North London to guide a group of slightly bemused drinkers through “a sensory-filled journey of exploration that conjures mystery, myth and legend.”

Some things are better in the dark. Nightclubs, hiding from people, sleeping… being Fred West… It’s an exhaustive list. Bowmore’s exploration of darkness and/or novel marketing strategies didn’t include any of these things, but we did get to try Bowmore 15 Darkest (do you get the theme yet? Do you?).More...

Following our intrepid journey to Islay in May, we were invited back to brave the gale force winds and torrential rain to attend a very special event at the island’s youngest distillery.

We left early, and headed to Kilchoman for the launch of their new bottle, as well as a new limited edition, cask strength distillery-only number. More...

Sadly, when we awoke on Saturday, we discovered that there had been “poorly defined ferry issues”. This meant we couldn’t attend Ardbeg’s distillery day, and instead we had to pack our things and race across the island to reach the morning boat. You can imagine our chagrin. It looked to be a great day and the weather was splendid, complete with blue skies and, for the first time in over a week, we were thrilled to see our tired bodies were casting shadows on the ground. This felt like a good omen for our Lord of the Rings-style quest home (in this case, back to the Shire). More...

Friday was Bunnahabhain’s distillery day...

As far as Islay distilleries go, Bunnahabhain is perhaps the least talked about among the Scotch cognoscenti, and whilst this is entirely unfair (due to the quality of the spirit), it is unsurprising in many ways. For a start the whisky isn’t particularly peaty, nor is not subject to any wild experimentation during production or maturation, and overall, well, it’s decidedly gentle. More...