What is Islay?
Islay: Islay is a Scottish island famous for peated whisky: barley dried over burning peat.
- Category
- Spirit
- Taste
- Big smoke, iodine, seaweed, campfire.
- Strength
- About 40-46% ABV
- Similar to
- mezcal (for the smoke)
- Also called
- islay scotch, peated, peaty, laphroaig, ardbeg, lagavulin
The story
Islay has about ten working distilleries on one small island. Peat was the only fuel there to dry the malted barley, and that gave the whisky its smoke.