Aqua ‘Growing for Bruichlddich’ signs have been dug out and reinstated on fence stobs and gates across the island. Our previously roving reporter Kate has been on the phone, e-mails, messaging and talking over walls to some of the barley farmers and Laddie team members to bring you the happy news that barley farming is progressing well this year, regardless of current global uncertainty.
Across Dunlossit Raymond Fletcher has been very busy sowing seed at Storakaig, Cattadale and the last lot in at Kynaggary.
Concerto has been sown at all of these sites. Raymond was away to check on progress after this unusual six week dry spell and at the time of writing some rain has at last come, two days earlier than anticipated. It must have been a good rain dance…
On the east side of Loch Indaal, Cruach field pictured is turned and waiting for seeding. Farmed by Hunter Jackson of Bowmore, the field here was photographed 30th March by Raymond Tibbs from our hosting team.
The Fletchers of Persabus Farm on the north east of Islay have been growing for Bruichladdich in conjuncton with Dunlossit Estate since 2017.
Raymond, of Dunlossit, sowed 11 acres of Concerto in ‘The Big Field’ on April 17th. The field is southeast-facing and in its fourth year of cropping but it poses some challenges for tractor work and growing, due to uneven patches of historical levelling attempts by former inhabitants.
The soil is well-suited to cropping with a rich redness from the underlying limestone that might be envied elsewhere on Islay where the geology is completely different. The farm’s rather tame flock of black-coated Hebridean sheep certainly approve of the grass there.
74 acres of Sassy barley variety was sown at Coull Farm last month by Andew Jones. Derived from Concerto x Publican, Sassy recieved approval for distilling in 2017 and was grown for the first time at Coull last year.
Andrew’s photo, with Machir Bay in the background, graced the front cover of Farmer’s Weekly recently, championing Bruichladdich and our much respected partners who grow malting barley.
Read more on our barley exploration
Ploughing on Orkney in preparation for the ancient varietal Bere. The turned ground is an attarction to the local gulls for grubs and beasties, gold at the end of their rainbow.
Shoots appearing at Octomore on 27th April. The farm sits up on the hill behind, looking down to Loch Indaal. Photograph from Joanne Boyd, our hosting and ambassador manager.
Up on Orkney John Wishart at UHI has enjoyed the good weather to practice safe social distancing from his tractor. “We had all the bere sown by the 16th of April which is a bit earlier than previous years.” Bere for Bruichladdich is being grown at The UHI and with contractors Ian Sinclair and Barrie Moar (pictured).
At Craigens, Loch Gruinart the Archibald family are testing out an 18 metre strip of no-till growing up past the woods by the farm. This practice reduces the amount of machinery passing over the land with just a seeder as opposed to the plough, leveller, seeder and rake; reducing compaction of the ground. “We’ve got the seeder so we just thought we’d try it. It’s good to try things.”. Craig hopes it will reduce soil erosion and loss of nutrients from the soil by not turning it over. While it is to be seen how it affects the crop, the lower cost benefits may balance out any lesser yield. No-till is not often practised on the west but in more climatically favourable areas on the east and down south.
“We were a little later with the sowing with the calving and the lambing this year. They come first.”
Spring waits for no man nor farmer.
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The figures below state the average representative values per serving giving 10g alcohol, or per standard 25ml measure:
| Product | The Classic Laddie | |
|---|---|---|
| Alcohol (% by volume) | 50% | |
| Nutritional values: | Per 10 g alcohol (25,3 ml serving): | Per 25 ml serving: |
| Alcohol (g) | 10 | 10 |
| Calories (Kcal) | 69 | 69 |
| Fat (g) | 0 | 0 |
| – of which Saturates (g) | 0 | 0 |
| Carbohydrates (g) | 0 | 0 |
| – of which Sugar (g) | 0 | 0 |
| Protein (g) | 0 | 0 |
It started with our friend ‘Demolition Dave’ helping Duncan McGillivray and his gang to demolish the old Inverleven distillery – buying up all the old equipment for scrap and loading it onto barges on the Clyde. All so Duncan had some spares to keep Bruichladdich running in the days of No Money.
As this odd flotilla was being towed round the Mull of Kintyre and up to Islay, Laddie MD Mark Reynier received an email from the Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in the USA who had been monitoring distillery webcams on the grounds that our processes could have been ‘tweaked’ to produce the dreaded WMD. ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’.
Never one to allow the opportunity for a good story to pass him by, or to get his beloved distillery in the news, Reynier embellished the tale, which soon grew to involve spies and the CIA and visits by weapons inspectors. All of which made great headline-grabbing copy in the febrile media atmosphere then prevailing around WMD.
One of the stills from Inverleven was dutifully set up outside the old Victorian buildings, and became an iconic sight, with a pair of Duncan’s old wellie boots sticking out of the top to represent those weapons inspectors searching for dangerous chemicals deep in its copper bottomed interior.
A special bottling was commissioned (of course) and dubbed the ‘Whisky of Mass Distinction’ (geddit?) and much hilarity ensued. At least among the Laddies, the rest of the whisky industry having long since given up on the noisily irreverent rebels.
Things were about to get even more eccentric because, shortly afterwards, Islay fisherman John Baker was heading home to Port Ellen when he spotted something awash in the sea off the bow of his boat. Being a resourceful man, he attached a rope to said object and towed it into the pier where Gordon Currie lifted it out of the water. It proved to be a very beautiful yellow submarine.
Very conveniently, the yellow vessel had ‘Ministry of Defence’ and a telephone number stencilled on it, which was of course immediately called. What happened next was to become the stuff of legend. He was connected to the Royal Navy. “I have found your yellow submarine” said John. “We haven’t lost a yellow submarine” said the Navy. Which was an odd response as the evidence to the contrary was overwhelming.
John and Gordon then loaded the submarine onto a lorry and took it to a secret location in Port Ellen (actually fellow fisherman Harold Hastie’s back garden). The local newspaper was called, then the nationals, and the following day the red-tops were full of pictures of the two friends astride the lethal-looking machine, carrying fishing rods, and asking: “Has anybody lost a yellow submarine?”
Hilarious… unless you were the Royal Navy – who did eventually admit to it being theirs. HMS Blyth, the minesweeper that lost it, eventually came to pick it up, slipping into the pier at dawn to winch it aboard. By that time, Bruichladdich had (of course) commissioned another bottling, WMD2: The Yellow Submarine, and a box of lovely liquid was graciously offered, and accepted by the captain as a goodwill gesture.
The figures below state the average representative values per serving giving 10g alcohol, or per standard 25ml measure:
| Product | Islay Barley 2009 | |
|---|---|---|
| Alcohol (% by volume) | 50% | |
| Nutritional values: | Per 10 g alcohol (25,3 ml serving): | Per 25 ml serving: |
| Alcohol (g) | 10 | 10 |
| Calories (Kcal) | 69 | 69 |
| Fat (g) | 0 | 0 |
| – of which Saturates (g) | 0 | 0 |
| Carbohydrates (g) | 0 | 0 |
| – of which Sugar (g) | 0 | 0 |
| Protein (g) | 0 | 0 |
The figures below state the average representative values per serving giving 10g alcohol, or per standard 25ml measure:
| Product | Port Charlotte Scottish Barley | |
|---|---|---|
| Alcohol (% by volume) | 50% | |
| Nutritional values: | Per 10 g alcohol (25,3 ml serving): | Per 25 ml serving: |
| Alcohol (g) | 10 | 10 |
| Calories (Kcal) | 69 | 69 |
| Fat (g) | 0 | 0 |
| – of which Saturates (g) | 0 | 0 |
| Carbohydrates (g) | 0 | 0 |
| – of which Sugar (g) | 0 | 0 |
| Protein (g) | 0 | 0 |
The figures below state the average representative values per serving giving 10g alcohol, or per standard 25ml measure:
| Product | Octomore 07.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Alcohol (% by volume) | 59.5% | |
| Nutritional values: | Per 10 g alcohol (25,3 ml serving): | Per 25 ml serving: |
| Alcohol (g) | 10 | 12 |
| Calories (Kcal) | 69 | 82 |
| Fat (g) | 0 | 0 |
| – of which Saturates (g) | 0 | 0 |
| Carbohydrates (g) | 0 | 0 |
| – of which Sugar (g) | 0 | 0 |
| Protein (g) | 0 | 0 |
