Our Uist bere barley begins its journey to the cask in one of the world’s rarest and most remarkable habitats: the machair. The word machair comes from Scottish Gaelic and refers to a fertile, low-lying plain along the Atlantic coast. Machair soils are generally free-draining, sandy, and rich in calcium from the tiny fragments of seashell blown inland on strong atlantic winds.
Machair is globally rare - more than two-thirds of the world’s machair is estimated to be found in Scotland, with more than half of Scotland’s machair located in the Outer Hebrides. Much more than a particular type of soil - the machair is a habitat shaped over countless generations by the people who live and work on it. This relationship between people, livestock, crops and landscape is at the heart of both Uist crofting and Uist whisky.
Our distillery home sits on this unique habitat, built in the shadows of Culla Bay’s sand dunes on the fertile west coast of Benbecula, in the heart of Nunton’s crofting landscape.
A Landscape Shaped by Crofting
Traditional knowledge and modern practice work alongside one another in crofting, with the machair carefully managed using inherently sustainable methods, so as to avoid coastal erosion and soil depletion and continue to provide food, support wildlife and remain fertile for generations to come.
There is a simple principle at crofting’s heart: if you take from the land, you must also give something back. Our bere barley is grown within this system and understanding how it grows means understanding the machair itself and the generations of crofters who have worked it.
Across Uist periods of growing grain crops such as barley, oats and rye are alternated with periods of fallow and livestock grazing. A typical rotation sees the machair cropped for two years before being left fallow for a further two years.
The fallow period of the cycle is particularly important - cattle and sheep graze the fields and stubble, returning nutrients to the soil through their manure. Their grazing also removes old and rank vegetation, helping to maintain the biodiverse sward that allows new growth to flourish. Even the footprints of the cattle play a role.
The hooves create small patches of bare, disturbed ground into which wildflower seeds can fall and germinate. The hoof prints and uneven ground can also provide shelter and suitable nesting areas for ground-nesting birds, who then feed on the insects around the cattle droppings.
This is one of the remarkable characteristics of machair: activities that might appear simply to be part of agriculture are vital to the sustainability of the ecosystem.
Careful Cultivation
Machair is not typically easy land to work, but in a landscape dominated by rock and peat bogs it is a rare site of fertility in the Hebrides, and therefore vital to island life.
The fertile topsoil can be remarkably thin — often only around six inches deep — with sand beneath it. Ploughing too deeply can expose the underlying sand, increasing the risk of wind erosion and sand blow. Shallow ploughing, generally around three to five inches, allows the soil to be inverted without unnecessary disturbance to the sand below.
Timing is just as important - many crofters aim to carry out ploughing and cultivation whilst being sympathetic to the nesting season of the island’s ground-nesting birds. When cultivation does take place, efforts are made to complete the work efficiently so that disturbance is kept to a minimum.
Many crofters will carry a spade in their tractor cab, allowing them to move a small patch of ground holding a nest to one side, continue cultivating, and then return the patch immediately afterwards, allowing the nest to be protected. It is a small action, but it reflects something much larger: a deep awareness of the land and the wildlife that depends upon it.
Barley, Oats and Rye Adapted to the Machair
The crops grown on Uist’s machair have themselves become part of this relationship. Barley (eòrna), oats (coirce-beag) and rye (seagail) have been cultivated on the islands for millennia, with archaeological excavations on Uist finding grains dating back to the bronze age.
Over time, these hardy crops have become genetically adapted to the unique conditions of the machair soil and the wild weather. The traditional varieties grown here can be cultivated without relying on the intensive inputs often associated with modern agricultural systems.
Dating back to the neolithic period, bere is the only barley to have thrived in Uist. Generations of evolution in place have seen it become uniquely adapted to machair cultivation and this ecosystem in which the crop, soil, livestock, wildlife and people are all interconnected.
Giving Back to the Soil
Because machair soils are naturally low in certain trace elements and minerals, maintaining fertility is an important part of traditional management.
Seaweed (feamainn) has traditionally been collected from the beaches after being washed ashore during winter storms, and is returned to the land as fertiliser.
Collected in the first months of the year, it can then be left to decompose before being spread onto the machair in early spring and ploughed into the soil during cultivation between April and May.
The use of seaweed drastically reduces the need for artificial fertilisers. Seaweed provides vital nutrients while also lending physical benefits to the soil by reducing sand blow and soil erosion in the wilder months. Seaweed left on the machair also provides an important winter food source for birds, with insects and larvae associated with the decomposing seaweed becoming part of the food chain.
A Haven For Wildflowers, Bees and Birds
More than 155 species of wildflower can be found across machair habitats, resulting in a landscape that changes dramatically through the seasons — from greens and browns to a spectacular carpet of colour as the wildflowers bloom. The machair is home to over seven species of bee, including the endangered great yellow bumble bee and the striking moss carder bee (a Hebridean subspecies)
This abundance of plants supports an equally rich insect population, acting as natural pest control as brightly coloured flowers draw insects away from the crops, and attract birds that predate the insects.
The machair is home to many bird species including corncrakes, Arctic terns, redshanks, corn buntings, dunlins and linnets. Ground-nesting birds are particularly sensitive to the way the land is managed, making the timing and method of agricultural work especially important.
Harvesting With Wildlife in Mind
The same care is required when the crops are ready to harvest. The critically rare corncrake can have two broods during the breeding season, so delaying cutting gives the birds and their young time to move away from the crop. Harvesting techniques also make a difference. Cutting from the centre of a field towards the edges, rather than trapping wildlife against a boundary, can help wildlife move to safety, while raising the mower slightly leaves a little more stubble behind, which can benefit both wildlife and the quality of the resulting silage.
Delaying harvest also allows wildflowers within the crop to flower and set seed for the following year.
For crofters, however, there is always a balance to be found. Weather, crop maturity, nesting birds and an increasing population of geese all influence timing of the harvest. Geese can cause significant damage to crops, leaving crofters facing difficult decisions about when to harvest and how to protect the crop they have worked hard to grow in challenging conditions.
From Machair to Malt
Our bere barley follows a journey that is rooted in the machair lifecycle. Grown and harvested specifically for whisky production, the grain is currently sent to the mainland to be malted before returning to Uist for making our whisky. We are working to close this gap in the process with a our new malting shed, bringing that integral part of the process home and creating a more circular supply chain.
In time, this will make the journey of our bere barley wonderfully simple: walk along Culla Bay, through the barley fields where the grain is grown, and on to the distillery to enjoy a whisky made from that very grain.
It is a small part of a much bigger relationship between the people, the land and the seasons of Uist. For generations, crofters have worked with and respected the machair, understanding that its fertility and biodiversity depend upon careful management. Our bere barley is grown within that living system, creating a whisky shaped by provenance, people and place. From land, to hand.
- Olivia, Distiller
