Islay

Islay is the westernmost of the Inner Hebrides: low, wind-scoured and soaked in peat. Distilleries sit on the shore, and you taste it — iodine, seaweed, smoke and a saline finish that belongs to this island alone.

Not every Islay is a peat bomb. Bruichladdich and Bunnahabhain also make unpeated, elegant malts. But the classics — Laphroaig, Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Caol Ila — defined what the world means by peat: medicinal turf, tar, campfire and a long, dry finish.

To drink Islay is to drink landscape. This is whisky that doesn’t try to please; it tries to bottle a place.