Islay - Island Of Wonder

At the tail end of last winter, my wife and I took a tour around Scotland and the lower Hebrides with her cousin Yanick and his wife Michele. If you have never visited this part of the world, do yourself a favour and go now. I could talk for hours about why you should go and where, but you don't have the time to read all that. So instead, here is a series of photos from our trip to sample a few dozen drams of scotch and source new materials in between.

The first thing to do when you arrive on the island of Islay is find a good#dram of whiskey.

Next it's to the west of #Islay to visit the fine folks of Bruichladdich before heading to the beach for sunset. This island is a special place.

The Islay Woollen Mill.

Making traditional tweed is no easy task. There are over 600 different hand-spun threads of wool that go into every tweed woven at the Islay woollen mill, using traditional techniques on machines from the 1800's.

Once on the spool, the wool is woven into one of hundreds of tweed and tartan designs created by local legend, Gordon. The result is a beautiful cloth ready for inspection.

The higlight of this tour was seeing the Oak & Awl tweed come to fruition. After a close inspection by Gordon, he handed it to me to start making some prototypes for our future collaboration. I'm insanely excited about this, and the prototypes are working great so far. Keep your eyes peeled next month.