Blogging from A to Z Challenge: I is for Islay

I’m in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for the month of April.  I need your help!  To meet this challenge, I’ll be doing one post a day, working through the alphabet.

Your job is to comment and keep me motivated!  Let me know you’re out there and following along.  Can she make it?  Will she?  Of course she will!  With you as my cheering section, I won’t be stumped by J or Q or even X.

So without further ado, here is today’s post.

I is for Islay, pronounced “Eye-la,” an island on Scotland’s southwest coast in the southern Hebrides, home to several whisky producers and known for strongly flavored, peaty single-malts due to the water on the island filtering through peaty ground, as well as salt spray from the surrounding ocean.

The distilleries currently operating on Islay are Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain (see B is for Bunnahabhain), Caol Ila,  Lagavulin, and Laphroaig.  Bunnahabhain on the north coast draws its water from a spring, so it lacks the pronounced peat and salt flavors.

The number of distilleries on Islay has varied over time to as many as 23.  

Islay is also home to Scotland’s first wave-power station.

Interested in finding the other nearly 2000 blogs participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  Click on the title, then scroll down to find the sign-up list.