The Roots of Rock’ndaal

The annual festival of Malts and Music on Islay is a fixture in any whisky lovers’ calendar. This year will be its 40th anniversary. Its original incarnation was as a grassroots celebration of Gaelic heritage, culture, and traditional music in 1986. Its timing in May was designed to extend the summer holiday season, which was beginning to be important to the island’s economy. Founding Lady Chair, Margaret Anne MacTaggart, recalls their desire to “do something for the tourists that were coming in - for them to discover what the island was really like… Also to get the community to look at itself and to use what it had, to realise the value of what it had, and the value of what it had in other people’s eyes, if not in their own…" watch the full interview here and concerts, of course, but also competitions for the best decorated village - judged by the bin men - floats, church services, organised walks, theatre, history, talks, exhibitions, all infused with the indigenous language and culture. In the 1987 programme, in Port Ellen’s Ramsay Hall, they had a slide show accompanied by a whisky tasting - the slide show being the main draw. The distilleries weren’t part of the festivities until 2000. Indeed, prior to that, the island’s distilleries didn’t offer official tours or have dedicated visitor facilities. You would have to call the manager on the office landline number if you wanted a look round. 

Bruichladdich’s joining the festival programme of 2001 was significant, and “Festival Day” has remained significant to Bruichladdich ever since, because 29th May 2001 was the distillery’s official re-opening day. A small but passionate team of nineteen had been on a “white knuckle ride” of renovation since the previous December when the independent, somewhat eccentric, consortium had managed to buy the mothballed premises, its equipment, and its legacy stock. Master Distiller Jim McEwan gave a speech, then the ribbons were cut at the newly painted gates. Two local pipers led in around 1,000 members of a staunchly supportive community from near and far. The souvenir t-shirts proclaimed “Bruichladdich is Back!”; the special bottles, hand drawn from a 1970 Bourbon Hogshead, were labelled “I was there!”. 

When the first cask ran out, a matching “I was there too!” cask was opened, followed by a third “I was there - (but not that day)”, as word spread around Islay through the week. There were also barrels of Islay springwater from Octomore Farm to complement the drams - who knew then that every future bottle running off our line would carry something from this spring with it? “Supertours” were given every 30 minutes from 10:30 to 13:30, led by founders Simon Coughlin, Mark Reynier, Jim, or Sales Director, Gordon Wright, or Distillery Manager Duncan MacGillivray, or semi-resident professor Walter Schubert, or enthusiastic industry insider Richard Joynson… A huge community effort; ask Jim to sum it all up in one word and he’d say, “It was emotional.” The day featured twice in Whisky Magazine Issue 18. Dave Broom described “a sensation of happy chaos”, while Michael Jackson’s editorial focuses on individual characters and universal sentiment - “tears falling by an aquamarine sea”. The fireworks display from the end of the pier that night lives long in local memory. 

The next 10 years of Bruichladdich Day saw a fête-like atmosphere in the yard each year, with local ceilidh bands and folk singers as the entertainment. Jim’s legendary six-dram tasting “the Masterclass” was held a few doors down in Bruichladdich Hall, before it moved to Warehouse 6 and then eventually to Warehouse 12. In 2003, with our team boosted to 33, we welcomed visitors into our newly-opened “Harvey Hall” bottling facility. The crowd was becoming more internationalist as positive publicity about Fèis Ìle grew.   

In these years, Bruichladdich’s exclusive festival releases were single casks - “Babe” is a piglets-in-a-barrel story (Sherry Butt) from 2003, “Wee George” from 2004 celebrates Islay’s famous son, Lord George Robertson, being promoted to the position of Secretary General of the UN (Refill Sherry Hogshead). 2007’s “First Cut Port Charlotte” (cask strength Bourbon) was the result of one of our first distillations, celebrating both our expansion into a historic warehouse site in Port Charlotte and the emergence of a whole new peated whisky brand. After the festival, the team would pile back to the McEwan’s house for supper and then go onto the Loch Indaal in Port Charlotte for the after-party proper. Lynne McEwan, now one of the most senior members of our team, met her husband in one such party in 2006 - they were married in the stillhouse four years later.  

There was evolution from 2011 - 2019. “Renaissance 2001/2011” was our first mainline bottling for the Fèis. The theming of the day became more than just a t-shirt. In 2012, the “Young Guns” of our Sales Team gave their own masterclass; our team stood at 47 strong. Music programming was growing more ambitious across the island, to include groups well-established in the Highland Rock touring scene. In 2014 we welcomed Skerryvore for the first time; they returned the following year. 2015 was themed “High Noon” - it was Jim’s last festival in charge. The Masterclass – Jim McEwan’s Last Stand - took place beside a gigantic decal of a Utah canyon, and “Wanted” posters of choice team members in cowboy hats. With Allan Logan, then Distillery Manager, and Adam Hannett, then Head Distiller, invited on stage to each present a dram, delivered with a hefty dose of teasing and high jinks, it was another emotional handover moment.   

In 2016, Adam’s first Masterclass included a final dram of “Octomore Black Art”. It ignited such a passion in some of the fans who were there that they created t-shirts demanding it be released at scale - pressure to which we happily gave in the following spring (thanks Whiskyhort Oberhausen!). In 2017, the liquid from one of our most famous releases had its 25th birthday, which is why Allan found himself engineering an ROV of a certain colour to fly over the stage in the afternoon and doling out drams of it from a 4.5L magnum to refresh the dancers. Tidelines first played for us in 2017, having given us a great staff Christmas party set in 2016. They played again in 2018. Then in 2020, frontman Robert Robertson gave us an acoustic set over Instagram from his parents’ place in Fort William...  

With our team 100 strong for the first time, the Covid-19 Pandemic meant we fully pivoted the festival madness into the digital realm. Two “Laddie Lock-Ins” have been fully archived online; perhaps they now merit historic interest of their own, if only for the Delorean gracing our yard where the crowds would usually have been.

2022’s festival was delivered by a team of 116, two special bottlings, and 2500 guests at the distillery, while as many again joined us online during an 8 hour livestream from the distillery attic. The relief and sheer joy of being able to get back together, alongside an increased awareness of our global audience, had led us to reconfigure the event as a mainstream music festival, with the highest production values Fèis Ìle had ever seen. “Rock’ndaal” is now like a festival-within-a-festival, with increasingly well-known headliner bands. Internet sensation Nathan Evans will join us for the second time this year. We’ve been able to extend the number of sought-after tickets to 4000 this year. The Masterclass is going to be a little different too (you can always tune in online for that). We’re all looking forward to this special anniversary year, mindful of how far we’ve come and how grateful we are for your support. As Simon Coughlin said, during the first Rock’ndaal broadcast, “It’s a day that I love - just bumping into people - friends, supporters, people who’ve been on the journey with us. It gives you a moment to look back, you know?”