Scotch Hobbyist's Blog

Feis Ile 2009

Feis Ile – the Islay Festival of Malt and Music – started this past weekend.  I’ve been following the action through Blogs and Tweets, and thought I’d post links to some of the more interesting sources I’ve found:

Feis Ile Web Site

Here’s a link to the Festival Events page on the official Feis Ile site.  You can see the main events taking place each day, giving you an idea of what people will be blogging/tweeting about and when.

The Islay Blog

The Islay Blog is posting detailed festival events at the beginning of each day, as well as additional information and videos.

• Saturday event schedule, including a link to a PDF with an overview of the whole week.
• Sunday event schedule, and diary of day one events
  • Sunday Diary of Sunday events (Bruichladdich open day)
• Monday event schedule
  • Monday Diary of Monday events (Caol Ila open day), with video. [Update]
• Tuesday Diary – Laphroaig open day. [Update]
• Wednesday Diary – Bowmore open day. [Update]
• Kilchoman Auction – Info, video and links related to the auctioning off of the first bottle of Kilchoman scotch whisky for £5,400 on Thursday. [Update]
• Friday event schedule [Update 5/29]
  • Friday diary – Bunnahabhain distillery
• Saturday diary – Ardbeg and Port Ellen [Update 5/30]

Caskstrength.net and The Whisky Exchange Blog

The gang at Caskstrength.net has teamed up with Tim Forbes from The Whisky Exchange Blog to attend Feis Ile and provide a single report daily, posted on both sites.

• Day One pre-festival report
• Day Two report – Check out their Lagavulin tasting notes, including the Feis Ile bottling!
• Day Three report – A bunch of Bruichladdich tasting notes in this one, including one bottled that day.
• Day Four report – Oh, man…I really want to get my hands on that Festival Caol Ila sherry cask bottling. [Update]
• Day Five report – Great tasting notes on a bunch of Ardbegs and Laphroaigs, including the Laph 30, which I’m going to open a bottle of in 10 days! [Update]
• Day Six report – Bowmore, and inside access at Port Ellen maltings! [Update]
• Day Seven report – The gang got to compare Laph 15 to 18, and original 10 CS to the new CS Batch 1 [Update 5/29]
• Day Eight report – Notes on Kilchoman nearly 3 year, Octomore 2004 sherry cask, and a 31 year Bunnahabhain [Update 5/31]
• Day Nine report – More Ardbeg goodness! [Update 6/1]
• Day Ten report – “Aftermath”.  Recap of the festival, including “best of…” awards.  Good read. [Update 6/2]

The Whisky Fun crew is posting tasting notes and ratings by proxy from a Belgian team led by Luc Timmermans.  Luc is the one responsible for the whiskysamples web site (see “A taste of Feis Ile” below).

• Tasting notes for the Lagavulin, Caol Ila and Bruichladdich special Feis Ile bottlings.  These are available only from the distillery during the festival. Will somebody like The Whisky Exchange get their hands on some bottles and make them available at a reasonable price?  I sure hope so.  I’ll be keeping an eye out for that Caol Ila cask strength.
  • Read more about the special Lagavulin and Caol Ila bottlings (and see pictures of the labels) on The Intoxicologist’s Blog.
• Tasting notes for Laphroaig Cairdeas 12 and 10 CS Batch 1.
• Tasting notes for the Bowmore Feis Ile 9 year, plus some bonus “Work In Progress” tasting notes. [Update 5/30]
• Tasting notes, for Ardbeg Feis Ile plus Bunnahabhain “Moine”. [Update 5/30]

Edinburgh Whisky Blog [Added 5/31]

Chris and Lucas were unable to make it to Feis Ile, but they do have Paula Arthur, who did attend, providing guest blog posts. She kept a detailed travelogue of her adventure,including pictures and tasting notes.

• The Great Islay Adventure: Part One – Getting there, arrival and meet-ups. Plus some notes on a couple of Caol Ila bottlings. A great read!
• Paula on Islay:  Day 2 – More great stories and pictures, along with tasting notes of Laphroaig Cairdeas 12, Triplewood, 25, 27 and 30. [Update 6/3]
• Paula on Islay:  Day 3 – Great info and tasting notes on Kilchoman and Ardbeg. [Update 6/9]
• Paula’s last day – The final entry in Paula’s travelogue.  Another great read. [Update 6/9]

IslayBlog.com

IslayBlog.com – Armin has some Feis Ile stuff in his Weekly Islay Blogging Roundup. Keep an eye out for his roundup next week, as it’s sure to have a lot more interesting Feis Ile updates.  Follow Armin on Twitter for additional, real-time updates:  @islayblog.

Laphroaig Direct

John Campbell, distillery manager at Laphroaig, and Margy McCoy from Friends of Laphroaig, are now on Twitter and posting updates during festival week: @Laphroigwhisky and @MargyMcCoy.

Spirit of Islay

Spirit of Islay – I’m not sure how I missed this before now, but Gordon from the great Spirit of Islay web site has been posting updates from Feis Ile as well.  Great stuff. [Update 5/29]

A taste of Feis Ile – Check out the Whisky Samples web site, where you can order 30ml samples of the special Feis Ile bottlings.  As of this writing, the Lagavulin and Caol Ila are sold out (I just missed them…argh!), but you can still get Laphroaig, Bruichladdich, Ardbeg, Bowmore and Bunnahabhain. [Update 5/29]

Jura Bonus – Ok, they’re not at Feis Ile, but check out the Dubber and Clutch blog as they take a special trip to Jura with their Flip video camera, sampling new Jura expressions, and taking video shots during their inside tour of the distillery.  You can also follow along with them on Twitter:  @twhisky.  [Update] It looks like Dubber and Clutch did manage to sneak over to Feis Ile.

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