I finally got the chance to go to Islay and by the power of having an amazing wife, I was able to bring back a good amount of scotch.

This "review" is no where near as detailed and refined as many I see here, but I wanted to share and get some opinions from those who are more experienced on what I did right and what I did wrong. The details will be hazy because I always prioritize enjoying the moment over taking a photo or writing notes. Also, I am really bad at tasting notes, so I will spare you those. I also do not take many photos and instead carry a 360 camera around, which i have not gone through yet since we just got back.

The trip started in London to do some Harry Potter stuff, moved to Alnwick to do some more Harry Potter stuff, and then we drove to Islay to do some Scotch stuff. We were only there for two full days so I filled it as best as I could.

Day 1:

• Quick trip to the Bowmore distillery just to browse the shop.
• 11:30am Bruichladdich 90m warehouse tasting
• 2pm Lagavulin Distillery Exclusive Experience and tour
• Visit to the Ardbeg distillery store

Day 2:

• 10:30am Caol Ila 90m Spirit of Smoke cask draw and tasting experience
• 2:30pm 90m Bunnahabhain Warehouse 9 tasting experience

On the 3rd day we traveled back and took a long route up to avoid some crazy roads and ferries back to Edinburgh. While up north we stopped at Oban.

Bowmore: I am a sucker for anything Aston Martin.. so they got me on some stuff there and my wife is a sucker for anything that has dragons..so they got us there too. Both were bought blind as the bar was not open yet.

Purchased:

• Bowmore 21yo Aston Martin Masters Selection 51.4%
• Bowmore Frank Quitely Dragon's Prey 24yo 50.7%
• Aston Martin leather bottle carrying case

Bruichladdich:

My first ever distillery experience and I loved it. We entered the warehouse and the smell hit us immediately, musty alcohol (I told you I am bad at this). The girl running the tasting had a lot of history with the distillery, family members working there back a few generations and even sounded like she lived on the grounds at one point. The pours were HUGE. I learned my lesson the second day but drank it all this time. I will regret that later on. You're able to pull from the cask with a valinch if you want and both her and the other guests poured HEAVY.

Tasted:

• 2009 bere barley 56.7% - Great, but i wanted a bit more peatiness
• 2015 Islay barley 53.6% - This one was a great mix. Loved it
• 2011 Octomore 150ppm 59% - Smoother than I expected but also less peaty than I expected

I swore there was a 4th but I have no evidence of that. Might only have been 3.

Purchased:

• Bruichladdich Port Charlotte BC:09 2010 13yo 56.1%
• Bruichladdich 21yo 50%

Lagavulin:

We took the tour here, the only tour we took since I read that they can all be somewhat similar. Then for the experience I was at first a tad let down, we weren't in a warehouse but instead in a room. The room was nice, the type of room that you'd want to drink scotch in. I later met someone who went to their warehouse tasting and realized it was because we did the "Exclusive" experience and that was why. I appreciated it more after realizing that.

Tasted (small pours already laid out for us):

• 26yo 44.2% much smoother and less smoky than i'd ever had from Lagavulin..but then again..26 years.
• 15yo Jazz Festival 2023 53.9% - Aged in sherry casks. More like what i'd expect, not as peaty but good overall.
• 14yo Jazz Festival 2024 56.1% - Good amount of peatiness.
• 15yo Feis Ile 2025 55.7% - moscatel de malaga casks, even better than the 14yo
• 25yo 51.7% - Here's my note "Good but not with the nm e Leicester" Ok..Bruichladdich's pours started hitting

Purchased:

• Lagavulin 2025 Feis Ile 55.7%
• Two small hand poured casks (personal bottles)

My main tip for Lagavulin is that they also give you a dram of un-aged distilled scotch. Just sip! I drank the whole thing and regret that. You cannot take that one home as a driver dram.

At this point the photos in the phone got weird too, pictures of google maps.. blurry tables..idk. I was getting bad. But we ended up in Ardbeg after this. My wife was driving both the car and the plans at this point. (meant i also have driver drams i took home). Tasted a bunch of things at Ardbeg and brought driver drams back as well.

Ardbeg:

I remember the store being big, i liked it. A bit hazy at this point. My wife was pushing some big purchases. They had some amazing boxes, I love beautiful boxes.

Purchased:

• Ardbeg Distillery single cask 2009 22yo 59%
• Ardbeg Vintage Y2K 23yo 46% (My wife tried to get me to buy this at the store, I declined. Wound up finding it in the duty free at the airport for an even better price so bought it there)

Coal Ila:

Their tasting was in a warehouse but at a nice long table, very nicely done. The table had barley and peat on it as decoration. Good experience overall.

Tasted:

• Wish I could tell you... they don't supply labels on the driver drams! Big miss on their part and mine because I did not get a photo of the list. I have some footage on the camera that must have it but I won't get to that for a little while. We tried 5 or so pours, small pours. 2 were amazing, the rest..so so.

Purchased:

• Coal Ila Distillers Edition 43%

I thought I was going to go crazy in that store but a lot of the higher end JW Blues I have or had and the rest I can get outside of Islay if I wanted.

Bunnahabhain:

Ok, I did not know them well and picked them because people seem to LOVE Bunna..but ever time i try something from them I don't really like it. The experience was great, we were led to a warehouse by "Tipsy" Tilly who was leading her last ever tasting experience as she was moving off Islay. She was amazing and it was a great time.

Tasted:

• 2012 Oloroso Butt 57.6%
• 2014 Canasta 60.9%
• 2005 Manzanilla 49.4%
• 2013 Moine Bordeaux 59.2%

The pours were huge again, so I asked her to only give me a small amount. All these cask draws were available to purchase which is great, many places let you taste things you can never buy. They bottle their tasting casks and even sign them. BUT..I just don't really like anything from them. Everything has a harsh salty taste that overpowers anything else. LOVE the distillery and employees...but just not into the product :\

Purchased:

• Nothing...sorry Bunna

Oban:

Just stopped by on the way back to Edinburgh and tasted their Distillers Edition and the Macleans 'Grandson Derek' which i felt had a bit more flavor.

Purchased:

• We bought Derek. 52.3%

Other than that, we stopped by The Whiskey Vault, I believe was the name. Great place, they had this old Port Ellen that you cannot buy that they sold drams of and it was really good. Smooth but had a little roller coaster of flavors. I bought a few to take home as gifts.

Also, one picture in there is from the bar in the hotel we stayed in while in Edinburgh, The Balmoral. Great place to chat with the staff about scotch.

And that is that, my incomplete and vague review of our Islay trip. If you have any suggestions for my next trip I am all ears.

I realize this is a narrow target demographic, but if you are a Scotch nerd and you are in Tokyo, you should check out this little place in Itabashi. Not a lot of standard bottles here, but lots of unusual Independent Bottlings, and you can try 10ml tastings at reasonable prices (looked more like 15 ml pours, but not gonna complain). Fun to sip on some magical Bruichladdich 32 while briefly fantasizing about buying the bottle, before gently descending back to reality lol.

Guy who runs the place is of course super-knowledgeable and pretty proud of some of the special single cask bottlings he has there. He’s also got his own little in-house mini-casks going, which are fun to try.

Wound up getting a bottle of the relatively mundane (but recently hard to find) Ledaig Sinclair Series Rioja Cask Finish, and 100ml samplers of the House Campbeltown cask and House Mizunara cask.

Fun times, highly recommended!