The main ingredient in malt whisky is, as the name indicates, malt. Malt is barley that has been allowed to sprout for about one week and is what the trade calls “malted”. To stop it sprouting, the malt is then kilned using burning peat (plentiful on Lewis) the heat and smoke from which imbues the whisky with its characteristic smoked taste. 
This year we planted over ten acres (Golden Promise) which produced about ten tons. This is the first time barley has been planted in Uig for as long as anyone can remember although oats have been grown on a regular basis. Early signs proved hopeful as the crop started to grow. The weather was kind, so we will took that as a good omen.
It's important to us to try and be self sufficient, to keep our carbon footprint down and replace what we take. Uig has never seen commercial farming, fertilizers or chemicals, the area is wild, remote, stunningly beautiful and clean, that's how we want to keep it!
So here we are, ready to produce a single malt from our own crop, from field to bottle, a dream realised. Our methods are like everything else at the distillery traditional. The barley has been dried through hard graft and malting will be more of the same. To see what we mean check out our video on YouTube and view our Picture Gallery.
As there are only three main ingredients in whisky it's imperative to get them right. A lot of the distilleries nowadays buy in barley from as far away as South Africa, or closer to home, England. There is no rule or regulation stating barley has to come from Scotland and it would be difficult to grow enough barley in Scotland to supply the entire whisky industry. However we, at Abhainn Dearg, should be able to produce enough barley on Lewis for our own needs and we're certainly going to give it a try - As Marko (Mark Tayburn) says "from field to bottle".
