Peat and whisky has a long and intertwined history. But what is peat, why do we focus on restoring peatlands and why do we not use it at Manx Whisky Company?
Key facts about peat in whisky
- On the Isle of Man, peat covers about 11% of the island
- Peat forms in waterlogged peat bogs over thousands of years
- Peat typically accumulates at roughly 1 millimetre per year
- During malting, peat has traditionally been used as a heat source to dry the malt
- Peat smoke contains phenolic compounds that create smoky, medicinal and, sometimes, tarry flavours that carry over to the whisky
- Peatlands store at least as much carbon as all the world’s forests, and by some estimates considerably more
- Since 2021, cutting peat is not allowed for any purposes
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The Manx Peat Partnership is actively restoring damaged upland peatlands on the Isle of Man
The Isle of Man has plenty of peat. So if this local raw material is so abundant, why don’t we, like much of the whisky world, use it in our whisky making? The answer is simple. Since 2021, peat cutting has been banned on the Isle of Man. The island has moved from a long history of peat extraction to a clear focus on peatland restoration.
We caught up with Sarah Hickey, Peatland and Upland Carbon Officer at the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture (DEFA) who is deeply involved in the Manx Peat Partnership, an organisation focusing on restoration of peatlands to learn more. But first, let us dig into how peat bogs form and why they matter.
How Peatlands Form
Peat bogs form where rainfall is consistently high and temperatures remain cool throughout the year, keeping the ground saturated for most of the time. Much of the island's terrain and its position in the Irish Sea, exposed to Atlantic weather from the west, provide exactly these conditions. It is persistently waterlogged and oxygen-poor, which is precisely why it accumulates carbon so effectively over time.
Sphagnum moss is central to this process. It thrives in acidic, nutrient-poor conditions and actively maintains the waterlogged environment that peat requires. Without the oxygen present in drier soils, the microbial communities that normally break down organic matter cannot function. Dead plant material therefore accumulates rather than decomposing, and layer by layer, over thousands of years, that material becomes peat. The process is very slow. Peat accumulates at roughly 1 millimetre per year. The deeper bogs on the Island represent thousands of years of accumulated plant material. Every dram of heavily peated whisky carries flavour compounds drawn from organic matter that was alive before the Bronze Age. Contemplate that when sipping your next peated dram!
On the Isle of Man, we have primarily two types of peatlands. The hilly uplands are essentially one large blanket bog, and this covers all our hills - Snaefell, North Barrule, Beinn ny Phott (which means turf mountain!) and so on. The deepest bogs are up in Ballaugh Curraghs and here the depth of the bog has been measured at up to three metres. Fun fact - the giant Irish elk in the Manx Museum was found preserved beneath a layer of peat!
Why Peatlands Matter
On the Isle of Man, peatlands cover approximately 11% of the island's total area. Like peatlands across Britain and Ireland, they store an extraordinary amount of carbon relative to their footprint. Globally, peatlands cover only about 3% of the Earth's land surface, yet they hold at least as much carbon as all the world's forests combined, and by some estimates considerably more.
The reason peatlands store so much carbon comes down to the same anaerobic chemistry that creates them. In waterlogged, oxygen-depleted conditions, plant material cannot fully decompose, and its carbon remains locked in the peat rather than being released into the atmosphere. Healthy, actively growing peatlands do more than store existing carbon: living sphagnum continues absorbing atmospheric CO2 through photosynthesis, adding to the store below. This distinction matters. A damaged peatland may retain much of its stored carbon for a time, but it loses the capacity to keep absorbing more.
When peatlands are drained or cut, this chemistry reverses. Exposed peat oxidises and erodes, releasing carbon that took millennia to accumulate. The wider ecological functions of the bog disappear too: the water buffering, flood regulation and specialist habitats that intact peatlands support. Damaged bogs lose their capacity to absorb rainfall slowly, and eroding peat can enter watercourses and increase treatment costs. The Manx Peat Partnership has been working to halt and reverse exactly this kind of damage across the island's upland terrain.
Peat Cutting on the Isle of Man
Peat cutting was once common on the Isle of Man, although mainly for heating and cooking rather than whisky production. Historically, people would claim a patch of upland and cut blocks of peat by hand. These blocks were stacked and left to dry before being used as fuel.
This activity shaped parts of the island’s upland landscape. Areas where peat was cut or eroded often developed steep exposed peat faces known as peat hags. Once exposed, peat dries, cracks and becomes vulnerable to erosion by wind and water.
By 2021 peat cutting on the island had been banned under local government policy, and the last public cutting areas were closed. Since then, the focus has increasingly shifted toward restoring damaged peatlands.
Restoring the Isle of Man's Peatlands
Let's get back to Sarah Hickey. Sarah has been leading the Manx Peat Partnership's programme to restore the island's damaged upland bogs. The work focuses on re-wetting the landscape and stabilising exposed peat.
The partnership uses a range of techniques to restore damaged areas. Low ground-pressure excavators reshape steep peat hag faces to reduce erosion and allow vegetation to re-establish.
Drainage ditches are blocked, often using peat dams, which raise the water table and help re-wet the peat. Heather brash and coir netting stabilise bare ground during the early stages of recovery, while fencing keeps livestock away from sensitive areas.
Sphagnum is the key to long-term recovery. This moss can hold 20 to 30 times its own dry weight in water, and it is this capacity that recreates the waterlogged, anaerobic conditions in which peat forms. Without a re-established sphagnum layer, a damaged area may stabilise but will not return to active peat accumulation.
Although restoration work can stabilise damaged peat relatively quickly, reducing carbon loss within a few years, the return to a fully functioning peat-forming ecosystem is a much longer process. Re-establishing the conditions for active peat accumulation can take decades, and in severely eroded areas, considerably longer than that. Early restoration nonetheless produces measurable results: carbon loss slows and water quality improves, even before the landscape has fully recovered.
Alternative Ways Distilleries Create Smoky Whisky
As should be abundantly clear by now, making a whisky with Isle of Man peat is not an alternative and, with our focus on using local raw materials, importing peat is not an option either. So what can we do if we want to create a smoky component in our spirit?
Peated whisky leaves a distinct smoky flavour in the casks in which it has been stored. To recreate this flavour we have bought ex-Islay casks that we use to mature some of our whisky. This helps to add a smoky backbone to our whisky stored in these casks. So far we think the results are very encouraging.
If you've tried Batch Four or visited our recent pop-up will have experienced some of our smoky creations. The most peat influenced one so far has been our 'Bastard Cask'. This is a marriage of 70% Oloroso and 30% Bourbon that was transferred into a small Islay firkin just over two years ago. The smoke is prominent and complemented by chocolate, tobacco, vanilla and red apples.
Some distilleries create smoky flavours without peat: Thomson Whisky in New Zealand uses malted barley that has been smoked with NZ native Mānuka wood (instead of peat). The result is a smoky spirit with clear notes of Mānuka honey. The Icelandic distillery Floki smokes its malt with dried sheep dung, a traditional fuel that produces a herbal, faintly medicinal smoky character quite unlike peat but still delicious. In Denmark, the distillery Fary Lochan has experimented with using nettle to smoke the malt. We haven't tasted this whisky but hope to get a chance to do so.
We find all these peat alternatives inspiring and exciting and may well explore something similar in the future.
The Future of Peat in Whisky
We doubt that whisky from regions that are strongly intertwined with peaty whisky will disappear. These drams are simply too iconic. What is changing is the growing awareness of the environmental importance of peatlands. Many distilleries now support peatland restoration projects or look for ways to reduce the amount of peat required to create smoky flavours.
It’s been fascinating to learn more about peatlands, their importance and how work is going on to restore these critical ecosystems. Many thanks to Sarah for taking the time to show us around. Researching this has certainly made us more thoughtful about the smoky drams we drink.
For us, smoke is a component we occasionally use when building our whisky. It adds a layer of complexity that makes the spirit more complex and interesting (but not always!). We are keen to explore Manx alternatives to peat and who knows, maybe we will see gorse, nettle or heather smoked Manx whisky in the future?