Bunnahabhain

Bunnahabhain

Bunnahabhain, meaning ‘River Mouth’ in Gaelic, is the most Northern distillery on the isle of Islay. Constructed in 1881 in a protected bay, a village was constructed around the distillery to house the workforce and their families. The distillery was only accessible by sea until 1960.

The distillery sources their water from the margdale river. The water flows underground and is pumped to the surface. Bunnahabhain sources their malt from Port Ellen Maltings on the South coast of Islay. They have a larger Malting warehouse than Port Ellen themselves, a requirement from when they only received deliveries by sea.they work with 40% peated malt and 60% unpeated which are stored separately. The grain is milled in a Porteus mill from 1964.

Bunnahabhain have one of the largest mash tuns in the industry, a remnant from when they would commonly supply large amounts of whiskies for blending purposes. They use six douglas fir washbacks, each with a capacity of 100,000L. They are filled to 70% capacity where a roughly 55 hour fermentation occurs.
Bunnahabhain distil with two wash stills and two spirit stills. The two wash stills are 30000L in capacity but are only filled to 17,500L for each distillation run. Their spirit stills are half the wash still capacity and are filled to 10,000L per distillation. The stills are pear shaped and relatively short.

Bunnahabhain age their whisky by the sea in flat bricked dunnages, allowing airflow and interaction with the casks aiding in the development of maritime notes that compliment their lightly peated whiskies, often aged in sherry casks.