A Peated Dram at an Islay Distillery

Islay is a small island off the southwest coast of Scotland, home to eight working distilleries on 240 square miles of peat bog, Atlantic coastline, and sheep-grazed headland. The whisky made here — smoky, medicinal, iodine-edged, tasting of seaweed and bonfire — is the most polarising in Scotland. People who love peated Islay whisky tend to love it with a devotion usually reserved for sports teams or religious texts.

The distilleries are extraordinarily different from one another despite sharing the same island and the same tradition. Laphroaig is medicinal and antiseptic. Ardbeg is intense and complex. Bowmore, the oldest on the island, is more balanced. Bruichladdich, resurrected in 2001, is the iconoclast, producing an enormous range that challenges every assumption. Most offer tours; all offer tastings. The correct procedure is to visit at least two or three over two or three days, allowing time for the sea air and the landscape to participate in the education.

Getting to Islay requires either a short flight from Glasgow or a ferry from Kennacraig on the Kintyre peninsula — a two-hour crossing through spectacular island scenery. The ferry terminal is in Port Ellen, close to Laphroaig, Ardbeg, and Lagavulin (three of the finest, arranged in sequence along the south coast road). Staying for a few nights in Port Ellen or Bowmore is far preferable to a day trip. The island is most itself at dusk, with a dram in hand and the Atlantic horizon ahead.