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Sowing Octomore Barley


Friday, 24 May 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

The malting barley seed was finally sown at Octomore Farm this morning - about a month later than planned.  The weather conspired against farmer James Brown, and the field he has chosen was simply too wet to take the tractor and seed drill until now.  We need a great summer of weather to see if the crop can catch up.  It is not impossible.  Islay enjoys long hours of daylight during June and July which means that plants can have a vigorous growing season if they see warmth combined with regular rainfall.  It could still happen.  James is eternally optimistic.

Nothing is easy or predicatable about growing malting barley on Islay.  This is the first time that this field has been used for growing the crop, and a great deal of work had to be done to prepare it.  The fields of Islay are not natural features.  They have to be prepared and constantly maintained.  They only exist because of a network of field drains that channel the water away and without which they would be simply waterlogged bogs.  Most of these drains were originally installed when the fields were built back in the 18th century and they were hand-made of dry stone.  It is hard for us to imagine the amount of labour that must have been involved.  Later, during the 19th Century, a factory making crude clay drainage tiles was built at Foreland on the Rhinns - which would have been a major step forward.  Many of the original stone and clay drains still exist and are still working, but many do collapse over time, particularly when subject to the weight of modern tractors.  They then have to be located, dug out and replaced with modern plastic field drains.

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The Rockside Farm Barley Crop


Wednesday, 22 May 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

Rockside is a big farm near the west coast of the Rhinns of Islay.  Mark and Rohaise French grow malting barley for Bruichladdich in addition to attending to their herd of Angus beef cattle and running Rockside Trekking Centre.  Mark planted his barley early this year, taking advantage of a spell of very dry weather in March and April to plough the ground and get his seed in.

There are a lot of risks associated with early sowing on Islay.  Huge flocks of wild geese spend the winter here, only leaving at the end of April for their breeding grounds in Greenland, high above the Arctic Circle.  They are very adept at digging the seed up as soon as it is in and can do significant damage.  The seed might germinate quickly, and then be nipped by a late frost, or heavy rain can puddle the ground, drowning the young shoots.

Those sun-soaked early April days now seem a long way off, because the weather then became very difficult.  Lots of rain, and unusually low temperatures for the time of year.  There was some goose damage, but the early sowing seems to have paid off.

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The Laddie Open Day, Islay Festival/ Feis Ile 2013


Tuesday, 21 May 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

We are all looking forward to The Laddie Open Day 2013.  With "Laddie Five - O" we will be celebrating Jim McEwan’s 50 years in the whisky business and around 400 lucky Laddiefans will be at Jim's "Laddie Five – O Masterclass"which starts at 10.30am, Sunday morning.  General admission to the distillery courtyard will be at 12.30.

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Local Pride - The Buffalo Whiskey Guild


Tuesday, 21 May 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

One of the great pleasures associated with being a small artisanal producer of, say, Islay single malt Scotch whisky, is how enthusiastically our work is received around the world by an ever-increasing band of interested people.  More and more of you seem to be 'getting' what high quality whisk(e)y is all about, and placing it in its proper context.

All over the world, individuals and groups are coming together to try interesting drinks, comment on them, review them, give them a score, or simply just say their piece.  We are then all able to share their thoughts, dreams, contexts and ideas though social media.  It is fascinating.  It is great fun, and it can be extremely rewarding, both for us as distillers, and hopefully for you as consumers when you are faced with the amazing choices it is possible to encounter in a 21st century liquor store.

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World Whisky Day - The Laddie goes #laddify


Tuesday, 14 May 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

TWEET US YOUR FAVOURITE SONGS (#laddify) FOR WORLD WHISKY DAY – SATURDAY 18TH MAY 2013

The Laddie Digital team is working with World Whisky Day and Laddiefans  around the world to create a unique soundtrack/playlist on Spotify starting Friday evening at midnight GMT and running for 24 hours.  We hope to fill it with tracks that you have sent in as tweets with the hashtag #laddify and every hour we will give away a lovely Wee Laddie to encourage you to participate.  It will be your chance to contribute to WWD wherever you may be in the world - and you may even get lucky and be able to look forward to receiving one of these lovely little bottles.

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The 40th anniversary of Spirit Still #1


Friday, 10 May 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

Colin Tocher, who now works at Bruichladdich in the Harvey Hall, started his career as a coppersmith at McMillans of Prestonpans near Edinburgh in Scotland where he served his time as an apprentice.  Back in 1973, Colin installed spirit still #1 in our still room – which is enjoying its 40th anniversary this year.…

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Independent Whisky Bottler Murray McDavid is sold to Aceo Ltd


Wednesday, 8 May 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

Murray McDavid, the independent bottler of single malt Scotch whisky has been sold to ‘UK based Scotch Whisky Suppliers’ Aceo Ltd. Murray McDavid was established in 1996 by Mark Reynier, Simon Coughlin, and Gordon Wright and the company was named after Reynier's grandparents, Harriet Murray and Jock McDavid.

The new venture soon became known for challenging whisky industry conventions, replacing the bland and rather stuffy industry style tasting notes with informative and irreverent label text together with its Gaelic logo ‘Clachan a Choin’ (which translates as ‘the dog’s bollocks’)…  All its bottlings were unchillfiltered and colouring free and in particular only the very best casks were bottled. They later moved on to marrying great spirit with great wine casks from all over the world which they called ACEing (Additional cask evolution). It’s ‘Leapfrog’ bottlings are now legendary!

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Bere Barley 2006 - Whiskydude on Instagram


Tuesday, 30 April 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

Another look at one of our uber-provenance Barley releases from the inimitable @whiskydude over on Instagram.  Enjoy!!

Bruichladdich Bere Barley 2006 - Kynagarry Farm, Achaba, Achfad Fields. Unpeated Islay Single Malt - 50% alc/vol. Bottle # 4227 / 7650.  now this is something else, i went into this knowing little to nothing about the "bere" variety of barley, you can read up about it on the internet. the quick facts: it's britain's oldest cereal and it's yield is less than half of that of regular barley varieties. i bought this along with the islay barley, figuring they were in some way siblings. in a way they are, but more as an idea, this guy has been spawned from a completely different seed. i have seen reviews covering both ends of the spectrum, people loving this and people not liking this. well here's my 2 cents....

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Islay Barley 2006 Review by Whiskydude


Thursday, 25 April 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

Our Islay Barley 2006 bottling seems to have tickled our friend Whiskydude over on Instagram who wrote this mouth-watering review. We're rather partial to this one ourselves here at the distillery - single farm, single field, single year's vintage and a wonderfully rich and oily dram (though we say so ourselves). Pure Bruichladdich. Thanks whiskydude! Glad you enjoyed it!

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Working with 'Crows Nest Films'


Tuesday, 23 April 2013 POSTED BY Carl Reavey IN News

It has been an enjoyable and productive week working with Carney Turner and Mohamed El-Fatih of Crows Nest Films.  We first came across Mr Turner a few years back when he put together a short documentary style video for us in magnificently moody monochrome - a production of which we remain inordinately proud and which is immortalised in Laddiespeak as 'The Carney Video'.  You can take a look at it here.

 

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