Last weekend, Prince Albert of Monaco visited the Argyll islands if Islay and Jura for a distillery tour along with whisky noser, critic and celebrant extraordinaire, Charles MacLean.
All nine Islay distilleries were lasciviously tested, with the Jura distillery at Craighouse across the Sound of Islay, too temptingly close to resist.
Three of the Islay distilleries made the cut for the arrival of the party on bicycles – Ardbeg, Lagavulin and, of course, Laphraoig. No one is saying anything about the stability of the departures.
Thanks to the imaginative and well connected activities of the current editor of The Ileach, Brian Palmer, cycling is a rich and deep vein in today’s Islay culture.
There’s the Velo Club d’Ardbeg.
There’s thewashingmachinepost, the cult forum for the cycling fraternity, whose name is a tribute to Old Faithful and its maker, the celebrated British cyclist, Graham Obree - made from an ad hoc collection of elements, including washing machine parts.
And then there’s the Ride of the Falling Rain, an annual ‘social cycle ride of around and around 100 miles which this year, 3rd August 2014, starts, as usual, at Debbie’s Cafe at Bruichladdich and finishes ‘at the same point several hours later’.
You get the vibe?
Smart of the Monaco party to link the casks to the wheels in their island odyssey. On both counts, they clearly knew what they were doing.
