And suddenly the end of 2025 is rapidly approaching. But before that it’s time for some blogging, food and drink. Islay drink of course. It’s been quiet here since early October (driven by an injury followed by an Islay holiday), time for a bit of catching up. Here is what I’m enjoying tonight:
My Christmas evening 2025 Islay dram and chocolate
Slightly more difficult to get as it’s only in travel retail and at the distillery, this is the PX Cask, one of my favourite Laphroaig Islay single malts. With it I had a first for me, a special chocolate from Islay Cocoa. I believe it’s only available at the distillery, it’s a dark chocolate bar filled with a Laphroaig whisky ginger caramel and crystallised ginger. I usually mainly have plain dark chocolate (usually around 80-85%), so the ginger isn’t something I’m used to. I very much enjoyed the experience, I thought the ginger went very well with the whisky.
Tomorrow, Christmas Day, I will probably wander over to the other side of Islay. For the whisky that is, the chocolate will also be from Islay Cocoa (although with a collaborator from the Rhinns of Islay).
At some point I had to give it a try. I wrote about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in relation to Islay previously, trying to generate Islay related pictures and more. I’ve also been doing various baking experiments. So why not combine the two? Recently I asked Google’s Gemini for a walnut bread recipe with Islay whisky and it came up with something I could build on.
An AI inspired Islay whisky bread
The recipe the AI generated sounded interesting, although some of it didn’t feel right (and I didn’t have all the ingredients it asked for). I decided to build on it while keeping the core of it. Let’s start with the ingredients:
The sponge:
100g strong wholemeal bread flour
100ml warm water
4g instant yeast
The dough
The sponge from above
300g strong wholemeal bread flour
200g strong white bread flour
150g walnuts (walnut halves to be precise)
50g golden caster sugar (as that was the closest I had and felt it fitted, the AI recipe had asked for brown sugar (or maple syrup))
7g (1 pack) instant yeast
1 tblsp vanilla essence
4 tblsp Islay single malt whisky (I used the trusted Laphroaig 10yo)
3 tblsp olive oil
400ml warm water
Now for the process:
I started with the sponge (not sure why the recipe called it that, I’ll have to learn about that): Mix together the three ingredients in a bowl, cover and let rise for 30-60 minutes.
Once the sponge is ready mix in the remaining ingredients and knead well (I used my kitchen mixer with a dough hook for about 10-15 minutes). Leave covered in a bowl for rising/fermentation for about 30 minutes. As the resulting dough was very soft and “runny” I decided to use a round silicone baking form, moved it into the form and let it rise again for a good 30-45 minutes, could even do an hour. Different to some other attempts of whisky breads this rose quite nicely. While it was rising the (fan assisted) oven was pre-heated to 180°C. Finally it was time to bake the bread. It went in for about 35-45 minutes (you have to watch it closely towards the end, as you can see in the picture the crust turns quite dark easily). Once ready remove from the form quickly to avoid it getting soggy and leave to cool on a wire rack.
The result?
It might need some further refinement and improvement, but for the first attempt I’m quite happy. The bread is a little bit chewy, although in a way I kind of like that, better than the soft, fluffy nothingness of some other bread. With just four table spoons of whisky in about a kilo of dough I wasn’t expecting much of a whisky taste, but I think I still smelled and tasted the smoky/peaty aroma of the Laphroaig a little.
I will certainly try this again, maybe adjust some of the ingredients a little. If you give this a try please let me know of your experience and more importantly your suggestions for improvements.
With autumn rapidly approaching it’s time for some more baking again. The original recipe for “Honey and Almond Shortbread Biscuits” I cut out of the now long defunct Reading Evening Post many many years ago. I modified it slightly by changing it to metric, adjusting some ingredients and the process and adding an admittedly insignificant Islay touch. Just because I could. Here we go:
Honey and Almond Shortbread with a dash of Islay whisky
Starting with the ingredients:
250g butter
90g runny honey
90g caster sugar
1 tea spoon vanilla extract
250g plain flour
125g ground almonds
3 tbl sp Islay single malt whisky (I used a Bowmore No1)
This is how I made them:
Mix together butter, honey, sugar and vanilla until creamy
Add the flour and almonds, mix well
Add the whisky (maybe while allowing yourself a dram?), mix well
Form/roll the dough into a long cylinder shape. It will be very soft and sticky, so this might be challenging
Chill or even briefly freeze the dough (this will make the next step easier)
Slice the dough into thin round(ish) biscuit shapes, spread out on a baking tray/rack lined with baking paper
Bake at 150°C (preheated), I think 20-25 minutes will probably be plenty enough (I left mine in for 30 minutes which made them much darker than I wanted, so the next batch will be in the oven much shorter)
And that’s it. As you can see I enjoyed some with a mug of tea and a dram of the Bowmore whisky. Did they taste of the whisky? No, not really. Can’t expect that from 3 spoons of whisky in 800g of dough. But it’s the thought that counts. And the kitchen smelled amazing while I was preparing and baking them. Good enough for me. Maybe you as well?
Back in mid June, when I picked up my sister Imke from the ferry having arrived in Port Askaig, I spotted a nice looking sailing ship in the distance. Despite being tired after a long day of travelling from Germany my sister agreed to wait until the ship had passed for a closer look. The ship turned out to be the French ketch Fleur de Lampaul. I was able to take a few pictures and record footage for a short video, which I’ve now finished:
Ketch Fleur de Lampaul in the Sound of Islay, Scotland
While only short I hope you enjoyed the view of the ship slowly and quietly gliding past on its way south. I think it’s nice and calming in our hectic world. What do you think?
Having a baking Saturday afternoon (nothing Islay related, just my normal bread baking. Two Hemp Hearts breads and one Walnut and Cashew) is a good afternoon to review and share some Islay related links I’ve found. I hope you find them interesting as well:
This one is the B8018 to Kilchoman sign, nicely complementing the A847 to Port Charlotte sign. As you can see it nicely fits on the other side of my Gaelic Islay map, especially as it points to the right, on to the map.
There are plenty of other signs available for other places on Islay and Jura, hopefully of your favourite place as well. If you have one let me know which one you’ve picked and where you’ve put it.
It’s been a while since I last blogged here, time to get going again. Life and work got in the way of blogging, luckily a good part of the life were two Islay visits. As I’m writing this from England I’m currently enjoying the late August bank holiday, perfect time for a nice Islay dram:
My August 2025 bank holiday Islay dram
Not entirely sure when I picked this one up, if it was during one of this year’s visits or earlier. As the label indicates it was distilled in 2010 and the back label states it was matured for 13 years in Bourbon cask 3170, so maybe I got it a year or two ago?
Either way, what matters is that it tastes good, and that it certainly does. I enjoyed 3 drams of it this evening with some nice juicy raspberries and later some 85% dark chocolate. Doesn’t get any better as far as I’m concerned.
Some lovely Irish music recorded on Islay I found today. Neil Ó Briain and John Tracey recorded their project Ar Foluain (meaning “afloat” in Irish) during a four day stay on Islay (not entirely sure when) and released it last week. They recorded a beautiful video of their time on Islay mixed with the recordings of the songs, the video and songs are a mixture of English and Irish, so you might need to switch on subtitles:
Ar Foluain | The Islay Project
Very enjoyable I think, I hope you liked it as well. If you follow the link above you’ll also find further links to various music streaming services where you can listen to the album.
It’s a fairly simple video, but I finally got my act together and uploaded a new Islay video. It’s another Islay road video, following in the footsteps of a (rather wobbly, gimbals weren’t a thing for me back then) video I created 15 years ago: Driving the Low Road – An Islay Road Movie? This one is one of my favourite drives on a sunny day, when the Paps of Jura are nicely visible:
Driving from Ballygrant via Keills to Port Askaig Brae, Isle of Islay
While the reason for the drive is often sad for me (as it often means I’m on the way to the ferry, leaving Islay) I still enjoy the wide views with the Paps of Jura on the horizon. The video starts just outside Ballygrant, then takes us to and through Keills and finally down Port Askaig Brae.
I hope you enjoyed the views from the virtual road trip. If all goes well I’m hoping to upload a few more new videos over the next few weeks.
That’s enough for another year, as the vast majority of you of course spotted the Islay Gisky release was this year’s April Fools from this here blog. The German speakers among you probably spotted the names, Gibtihnnicht means as much as “doesn’t exist” and AllesErstunkenUndErlogen as much as “all made up and a lie”. Of course I wasn’t the only one trying it out, in particular on Facebook (meaning you will probably need to be logged in to see them) I noticed a few more Islay related April Fools:
