Alexander Matthews painted a very negative picture of his recent visit to Islay, which is completely opposite to what I experienced (A whisky without peat is like soup without salt, but Islay visit is bland, May 14). After attending a family celebration in London my father, brother and I travelled to Islay for four days on a peat whisky pilgrimage. We had prebooked all the distillery visits and visited one each morning and afternoon. At most of them we were the only ones, so we had a private tour with a knowledgeable employee taking us from the malting process all the way to the finished product, and offering a sampling at the end. On some of the tours we even went into the cellars and were invited to choose a cask from which we sampled, and also filled 250ml bottles as souvenirs. At Laphroaig, being members of the "Friends of Laphroaig" club, through which we "own" square plots of land near the distillery, we were paid our annual "rent" (miniature bottles of 10-year-old Laphroaig) ...
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