Ales, more whisky, more ruins, Gaelic

Another late night (almost 11PM) blog entry. We just returned from Bogh Mor (Bowmore) where we visited the last distillery on our agenda, had supper then heard two hours of Gaelic voices and traditional voices at the Ionad Chalium Chille Ile.

Our day started with a late breakfast followed by a visit to open day at Islay Ales, where we ran into some folks we've met during the trip, as well as met the retired "Head Keeper" of Islay House. Islay Ales is located in one of the old estate buildings associated with Islay House. The house is for sale if anyone is interested. Link http://www.propertyfinder.com/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=502152118. Here's a link to information about the house and its American owner: http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/buying_and_selling/article2144511.ece

From there we headed south to Kilchoman Distillery (the next to last on our list) that is a small, farm-style distillery located on, uh, a farm, some distance from the ocean. That is somewhat unique these days as the other Islay distilleries are right at the water. However, in times past many distilleries were farm type operations. It was a nice facility and while there we heard of another church/graveyard ruin nearbye so we drove to see it. While there we ran into my chess opponent from last night, who was delivering the mail !!!

Rather than post more pictures of another ruin, or another distillery I'll save the next picture postings for tomorrow after we revisit some of the ports down below Bruichladdich.