Distillery visit - Ardnahoe 2022

Islay’s ninth and newest distillery, Ardnahoe sits proudly on the North East coast of the island. The distillery takes its name from the Scottish Gaelic for “Height of the Hollow” and draws its water from the nearby Loch Ardnahoe.

The distillery is owned by independent bottlers Hunter Laing & Co. and is the culmination of a long-held desire by their Managing Director, Stewart Laing, to own a family-run distillery. Islay was seen as a natural location in part due to the strong commercial demand for Islay whisky in the market, but also because the Laing family have strong ties to the island, having owned a pub on the island in the early 1900s. Stewart himself spent six months working at the distillery at Bruichladdich in the mid-1960s. 

Work was completed on the distillery in late 2018, with the first spirit running through the stills that October.

As is the case with most distilleries these days, malting isn’t done onsite at Ardnahoe. Instead, the malted barley is sourced from Port Ellen maltings in the south of the island. 

The only piece of equipment in the distillery which isn’t new is the 100 year-old Vickers Boby mill where the barley is ground to produce the grist for the next part of the process.

The Vickers Boby mill

The resultant grist is transferred to the mash tun, where heated water from Loch Ardnahoe is added to begin the process of converting the starches in the grain to produce a sugary wort. Ardnahoe aim to create a clear wort possible which requires significant amounts of monitoring during the process.

The mash tun with its copper dome

Once complete, the resultant wort is transferred to one of the four Oregon Pine washbacks. Oregon Pine is traditionally used due to its characteristic ability to produce long, straight lengths of timber which has few knots and minimal sappy resin.

The fermentation time at Ardnahoe is around 65-70 hours, which allows the wash to develop a distinctive fruitiness.

The still room at Ardnahoe is truly stunning, and built to take in the incredible scenery afforded by its location overlooking the Sound of Islay.

The room houses two ‘lantern-shaped’ stills produced by Speyside Copperworks, a 13,000 litre wash still together with a slightly smaller 11,000 litre spirit still. 

The length of the lyne arms which gradually descend over the viewing platform is quite astonishing, and that increased copper contact will no doubt play a key role the final character of the Ardnahoe spirit.

A traditional spirit safe sits centre stage against the stunning backdrop of the Paps of Jura.

You know you’re a whisky nerd when you first see the distillery and the first words out of your mouth are “They’ve got worm tubs!” in a suitably excited fashion.

Unique for an Islay distillery, Ardnahoe joined a very small and exclusive club of Scottish distilleries with their decision to employ the traditional worm tub condenser. Inside those beautiful wooden tubs are large copper coils submerged in cold water, which allow the vapour from the lyne arm of the still to slowly and gently condense. 

Once a common sight in distilleries across Scotland, their usage requires a slow distillation which, as production levels increased to keep up with demand, meant they fell out of favour.

Worm tubs!!

That concluded the tour of the distillery, so it was back to the visitor centre for a tasting session. 

Despite the first spirit now being old enough to legally call whisky, the owners have taken the bold decision to wait ‘until the whisky tells them it’s ready’. Whilst it’s disappointing that we couldn’t try a sample of the spirit, in these days of very young whiskies being launched from new distilleries it’s a decision that deserves a lot of praise and says much about the ethos of the distillery and the parent company.

Instead, the tasting involved a choice of some of the bottles from the Hunter Laing range, including Scarabus. My own choice was a Hepburn’s Choice 10 year old Glenburgie, a review of which will follow soon.

As we were due to tour Bunnahabhain later in the day we had decided to pre-book a table at the Illicit Still Café within the Ardnahoe visitor centre, and what a great decision that turned out to be.

I genuinely can’t recommend the food or the friendliest of staff highly enough, the food was excellent and catered for both vegetarian and gluten-free options. With a bar stocked with some incredible whiskies it was a perfect end to the visit.

A big thanks to our friendly and knowledgeable guide. Not only for a highly informative tour, but also for the opportunity to try a couple more whiskies in the shop and his recommendation for the whisky I should try from the Kinship range (Laphroaig 18).

A dram with a view!

Great tour and great hospitality, we’re definitely going to be back once the whisky is launched, if not sooner.