Isle of jura condensers12/17/2022 ![]() Dutch boats usually delivered the barley, and all the boats seemed to manoeuvre between the other sailing ships and herring boats. Photographs displayed at Gaol lla show little "puffer" boats bringing coal and empty casks to the distillery for filling. The remote distillery became a busy place. By 1863 when the burgeoning blended whisky industry increased demands for single malts, the whisky traders, Bulloch Lade and Gompany bought Gaol lla in order to enlarge its inventory of whisky stocks.įor nearly sixty years, Bulloch Lade improved and enlarged the distillery and operated profitably. Unfortunately, Henderson's business failed, and the owner of the Isle of Jura Distillery briefly acquired Gaol lla. The setting was dramatic in the nineteenth century and still remains very much the same today. Then he built the distillery and warehouses in a secluded cove on the Sound of Islay, overlooking the Paps of Jura. Henderson, an entrepreneur, situated his distillery specifically near to a good water source at Loch nam Ban and within easy reach oflocal peat beds. ![]() In 1846, Hector Henderson built the old distillery that his great grandfather would have recognized. The distillery itself is a very different place than the one that Billy Stitchell's ancestors would have known. But in stark contrast to the old building are the surprisingly new, modern buildings of the distillery. The old white warehouses bordering the road to the left, even now, are reflected in the waters of the Sound of Islay to the right. It is the road that Billy Stitchell travels to work every day and is the same route used by his great grandfather at the turn of the century. The road to Caol lla passes among a small collection of houses and curves down the hill to the Sound of Islay. Today Billy Stitchell serves as Production Manager at Gaol lla, having worked his way through the distillery to learn all of its jobs and responsibilities. His theoretical education had begun many years previously as he listened to the men in his family talk about the whisky industry. So when the new distillery rose from the site of the old one and reopened in 1974, Billy applied for a job at Gaol lla, and his practical education in distilling began. But whisky was in Billy's blood forestry was not. In 1972 as part of the forestry service, Billy helped to demolish the old pier at Gaol lla as other workmen dismantled the old distillery around them. His great grandfather, Duncan McCallum, worked at Caoilia Distillery, as did his grandfather and father. To that end, Ardnahoe is expecting to receive on average around 20,000 visitors a year.Three generations of Billy Stitchell's family worked in the whisky industry, but Billy joined the forestry service. With stylish cafes, tasting rooms, a large shop, as well as other facilities the distillery becomes a space meant to accommodate tourists as much as distillery workers and management. ![]() When I visited the Ardnahoe distillery while it was still in construction, it represented to me the future of Scotch whisky, as a new wave of distilleries are built not only with production in mind but also the visitor experience as whisky tourism grows in Scotland. Using worm tub condensers (the only distillery on the island to do so), wooden washbacks, and the longest lyne arms in Scotland, the eventual whisky in theory should be able to hold its own against other smoky whisky produced on the island (here’s a great article on how worm tubs can affect the taste of your drink). On the production side, Ardnahoe’s whisky is already guaranteed to be different once it ages to the legal minimum of 3 years and 1 day to be called ‘whisky’. ![]()
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