Fèis Ìle Part 1 – Lagavulin Day

It wasn’t long after starting at Lagavulin that we noticed a wee anxious tremor in the voices of our new colleagues every time Fèis Ìle was mentioned: “it will be great”, “you will love it” – phrases repeated a little too often… are they reassuring us or themselves??

Fèis Ìle is an island wide festival in May which celebrates all things Islay; however with distilling whisky being the main thing to do around here, naturally there is a massive emphasis on the distilleries. Running for 8 days, each distillery has its own open day and hosts a wee festival of their own. There are big name bands, dancing, food trucks, premium tours, special release whisky bottles and of course the whisky is flowing with free drams on offer too. The festival attracts approx. 15,000 tourists each year (not bad for an island of 3,500 residents), and it starts with Lagavulin on the 1st Saturday and ends with Ardbeg the following week.  

The final week leading into the festival was a blur of unique extra tasks in preparation for the big day. Each day the temperature on this big ol pressure cooker was building as the deadline fast approached. Eager to help as much as we could we got stuck in.

When the big day finally arrived, we were at work two hours early for final preparations. The festival opened with a ribbon cutting to the melodious sounds of an Islay piper before the Lagavulin staff walked the tourists down to the courtyard.

On the day Nicole was rostered on to do the Meet the Makers tour: a spin on the classic tour we had already been running on our own except with a varied route around the distillery and accompanied by a distillery operator who would give extra explanations and go deep into the whisky making methodology. Smashing out 3 x 1 hour tours each followed by 30 min tasting was a tall order, but she did it! Being on tour for most of the day and having dealt with some quite rude American whisky know-it-all’s meant that Nicole missed a large part of the Lagavulin festivities; however her day was redeemed when she wearily joined the team at the finale for a dance, cheeky dram and some pictures with one of our favourite Scottish bands, Mànran.

When it comes to Fèis festival jobs, I got lucky. I was rostered on as a co-host to the ‘Manager’s Big Challenge’ which was one of the ‘higher end’ experiences of the day.

The event was a primarily a whisky tasting that was broken up by team games a little like a game show. The manager and an expert taster would lead the tasting and myself and Emily (one of the lead guides at Lagavulin) ran the distillery inspired games that were specially designed with props built for the event. The prizes for the games were normally a take home dram of some high-end whisky, some of which were 100 pounds per dram with the top prize being a 25ml bottle of ‘Pinky’s dram’ a literally priceless whisky as it is no longer available to buy.

The event was high energy and quite fun; I was encouraged to taste the whisky (something we are not normally allowed to do) along with the patrons and discuss tasting notes as well as answer any distillery specific questions throughout the event. I was thrilled to be tasting along with the customers as the whisky being served was amazing stuff, but more than that I was very nervous and needed a little Dutch courage!

My favourite whisky of the tasting was a 22yr old Jazz festival release from 2020, however the Lagavulin 25yr old deserves an honourable mention too.

At the finale all of the staff were invited to the dance floor to dance out the last few songs. We sang and danced and cheered as the band played 500 miles, riding out the last of our adrenaline stores. At this point there were a few paper cups of whisky being passed around the team; while the day was drawing to a close, the staff party was only just beginning…

Once all the visitors had left the distillery the staff were able to meet the members of the band Mànran, who had just been on stage, and get a few pictures to remember the moment.

Relieved, exhausted, riding the high of just pulling off the best Lagavulin day in 10 years (so the locals told me later), the staff were invited back to a local café which had been booked out just for us. We had an amazing buffet style dinner and then kicked on with a party of our own, dancing and drinking a few ‘sample bottles’ of whisky sent to the manager for tasting purposes, until the wee hours of the morning. My favourite was a 28yr old Oloroso finish…. gorgeous !!

Then the cleanup started the next day, with fresh hangovers 😊

Lagavulin Fèis Ìle release: 10 yr old, 56.7% ABV. Experimental extra heavy peat at 55ppm. 1800 bottles. £175.