Did this title to deliberately provoke things because as any Island Bagger knows, that just wouldn’t work. It’s pronounced Isle-ah, no’ Isleay. Anyway, just back from our first Official Baggin’ Waggon trip and what a trip it was.
We bagged a number of Distilleries (but not all of them) and as you’ll read here a lot, the Bagging is important but it’s the journey that’s the real pleasure. Islay’s pretty easy to get to and if you contact Cal Mac they’ll fill you in with all the details. The ferry terminal is at Kennacraig which is a few miles outside of Tarbert, a little less that three hours drive from the Central belt of Scotland. Cost wise, our Baggin’ Waggon with a couple of passengers would be about £130 for the return trip. Not cheap and it’s something we’ll be lobbying on in the future. Cal Mac works under a lot of restrictions and constrictions and whilst they offer deals, none of them are all that sparkling. Hopefully, we can help to change this. It’s crazy that you can fly to Turkey for the same price as it costs you to get to an Island just off the coast of Scotland.
On to the Island itself. Googling ‘Islay’ will give you all the topographic and geographic details but that’s not what we’re all about, we’re more about giving you the real deal. What we liked and what we didnae like. In this blog, eating and drinking.
What we liked? Well, the Port Charlotte Hotel (in Port Charlotte) is the best Hotel on the Island. Real ales, great whisky (natch) and super food, although when we were there, it was so PACKED we didn’t get to try any. It’s run by a guy from Cumbernauld but don’t let that put you off, he runs a tight ship. It would be a great hotel if it was situated anywhere, let alone a wee Island in Scotland. I’d go as far to say it’s one of the very best places of it’s kind in Scotland.
Ironically, in the same wee village is a pub/hotel called the Lochindaal Hotel which the locals call ‘The Ditch’. It’s the polar opposite of The Port Charlotte. It was erm…couthy and a great place to take your gran, if she’d worked in a trawler at Peterhead. Could do with a really good clean but the vibe was brilliant and it certainly wasn’t boring. On one of the nights we were there, an amazing Ceilidh Band played and the joint (and this is very much a joint) was jumpin’! We’ll be posting a movie of this band, because the played Bruichladdich Sunday…much more on that later.
The Bridgend Hotel is sort of in the middle of Islay and although we didn’t eat there, the blokes from Scottish Routes did and they blog about it on here. We eulogise about Scottish seafood on Twitter a lot but the lobster lunch in this place is as good as it gets, anywhere.
Islay scotches the myth (see what we did there?) that Scottish Island food is ghastly and most of the pubs and hotels did perfectly okay grub, is just that the guys above were a bit special.
What about drink? There’s no room here to go on about whisky but suffice to say, the is THE place for Whisky and in our opinion the first trip a Whisky lover should make, before heading up to Speyside. The real surprise for us was the beer! The locally-brewed Islay Ales are superb and if you like real ales, you’ll love their selection. Their Saligo Ale is the perfect antidote to the peaty malts you’ve be enjoying and it’s a great way to end the day. Port Charlotte Hotel serves it up perfectly.
We can’t finish up without mentioning the Port Mor campsite, where we hitched the Baggin’ Waggon at night. Fiona and her team are as friendly and welcoming as it gets and this new facility is perfect if you’re doing Islay on a budget. A view to die for, great facilities and grub to keep you away from cooking yourself! Their fully-cooked Scottish brekkie, was a lifesaver every morning and the square (Lorne) sausage contained within it was the best we’ve ever had. The local butcher in Bowmore is a cracker but we’re going to do something separate about ‘provenance’.
Finally, a big mention to Duffies Bar in Bowmore. The helped us a lot with filming and feature on our wee £250 a dram movie’ on here. As well as Islay’s most amazing whisky bar, they do nice food all day, which is more than some places in Bowmore that we could mention…
So that’s it, Islay’s good for food, much better than we expected it to be.
This is the first blog of many. Looking forward to doing a lot more.
Victor
Victor Brierley
Good summary I mostly agree with. I suspect you didn’t manage to get a table (I suspect during Feis Ile almost impossible), but An Taigh Osda is a must for great food I think. I had the pleasure to attend one of their sea food evenings last year and it was just fantastic (there should be a write up of it somewhere on my blog).