Bruichladdich, in keeping with 99.5% of distilleries, has not malted barley on site for around 65 years.
In the post war years distilling capacity could be increased by ‘farming out’ the malting to professionals and using the the labour and time gained to distil more.
It was always our original intention to distil three different versions of Bruichladdich.
With Bruichladdich whisky being traditionally unpeated, we set out to distil two other whiskies at differing levels of peatiness. Port Charlotte was the first of these, heavily peated at 40 ppm, making it one of the most peaty single malts from Islay.
This begged the question, posed late one evening at the Port Charlotte pub: if at 40 ppm the elegance, finesse and purity of Bruichladdich spirit still shines through, what would happen if we upped the peat even further? In fact, just how far could we go?
The 2012 ploughing has now largely been completed by the Islay farmers who are growing barley for Bruichladdich this year. There is still lots to do however and some of the fields are being prepared before being sown with seed.
Bruichladdich distilled the world’s first ever whisky from biodynamic barley last year. Such is the extraordinary quality of the spirit that we are doing a second distillation - and it is double the size of the first one.
Next time you are in a wine shop, take a stroll around the fine wine section.
If you look closely at a bottle of Chateau Lafite, or any other of the great Bordeaux wines. You will see on the label, or the case, the words "Grand Vin". Not ‘great’ as a superlative, a boast, but as in Great Britain, big.
The 2012 distillation programme, which kicks off today with the Bere barley (pronounced "bare"), will see Bruichladdich use barley from 26 farms harvested in the autumn of 2011. We have maintained the 50-50 split between green and island grown barley.