The Paps of Jura disappear into the mist as I pedal along the shores of Loch Indaal, and the rain cloud I’ve been racing finally catches up. I stash my hire bike at Port Charlotte youth hostel, quickly change and make it to Lochindaal Seafood Kitchen just before the downpour.

I’m soon warmed, by the welcome then by a bowl of creamy fish chowder. “We’ve plenty of fresh seafood just in,” is all the temptation I need to order the seafood plate. It’s a bowl for one, but a hungry one, and soon I’m picking and cracking my way through piles of fat langoustines and crab claws, with hot whisky-butter scallops and plenty of bread and butter.

The island of Islay, off the west coast of Scotland, is far better known for its drinks than its food. With 10, soon to be 11, working whisky distilleries, Islay is synonymous with rich, heavily peated single malts. But, over several days cycling around the island, I find that whisky does much more than fill warehouses and attract tourists. It is helping to support an island where agriculture, fishing and hospitality have long struggled to provide year-round employment.

At Bruichladdich, one of Islay’s smallest distilleries but the largest private employer, that begins with the barley. When the distillery was bought by a pair of wine merchants after being mothballed several times in the 1990s, they questioned why the barley arriving at the distillery was being sourced from so many different places. Surely, they thought, like vineyards, where the grain was grown would influence the whisky’s terroir.

They began encouraging farmers to grow barley on Islay, which hadn’t been done since before the second world war. Farmers were understandably wary of taking on an unfamiliar crop, particularly as the tens of thousands of migratory geese from Greenland are partial to a field of young barley. When Islay’s last creamery closed in 2000, the dairy industry collapsed, so growing barley offered farmers another way to use their land, and Bruichladdich guaranteed to buy the crop regardless of the yield. Today, 21 Islay farms grow barley for the distillery, producing half of its requirements, and early experiments with rye have been promising.

Eva MacIntyre grew up on Islay, tried living on the mainland and came back. She now works for Bruichladdich as a brand ambassador and takes me up the hill to see the distillery’s water source.

“Growing up on Islay, whisky was a way of life,” she tells me. “It’s not just a drink; it’s all about who you share it with.” Before her whisky presentations, she practises with her grandfather. Her story is not unusual. “Every family has at least one person working in whisky,” she tells me.

I meet Kate Hannett, a full-time forager responsible for gathering the 22 botanicals used in the Botanist gin across peaty bogs and hillsides. Her brother, Adam, is Bruichladdich’s master blender, having started his career as a tour guide. Lisa Matthews, the assistant blender, is also an Ileach (a person from Islay) and the distillery’s first female blender. Her brother is a brand ambassador in the US. There are jobs in whisky, and reasons to stay on the island, that most rural communities could only dream of offering their young people.

The distilleries are woven into Islay life. I hear frequent stories of distilleries helping each other out and lending equipment when machinery breaks down. “It’s really not competitive,” Eva says. As well as the employment opportunities, whisky benefits the infrastructure. There’s a full-time fire service, unusual across rural Scotland. Even the swimming pool is heated by waste energy from Bowmore distillery.

At Islay Ales, another island-made drink begins with barley and soft west coast water. The brewery, founded in 2004, opened a new brewhouse last year. Its spent grain, or draff, goes to local farms for feed and wastewater is treated through a reed bed. On an island where the growing season is short and the weather can change before you’ve finished your pint, making food and drink locally is not necessarily easy. “After the Agricultural Show, which is the third Thursday in August, it’s winter,” I’m told.

Emma Goudie of Islay Cocoa began making chocolates as an easily transportable product that wouldn’t compete directly with other island food businesses. She uses local ingredients where they make sense, rather than simply because they are local.

“It’s quality first, but I’m lucky that the produce we have here is excellent.” Her current range includes Orsay sea salt, Argyll coffee, and sourdough from neighbouring Jura. She also works with the whisky industry, creating chocolates designed to pair with Ardbeg and for Caol Ila tours. “It grew quite organically and in the best way,” she says.

Iain and Alexander MacLellan are the fourth and fifth generations of a family whose hospitality business stretches back to the late 19th century. At Lochindaal Seafood Kitchen, Iain tells me he grew up with the fishers who supply the restaurant and remembers cooking mackerel and scallops on their boats. “I’ve been 52 years behind the bar,” he tells me. The restaurant grew out of the family pub at Lochindall hotel, partly because, as Iain puts it, “we ran out of space to serve our seafood platters”.

Chef Ajish Johny came to Port Charlotte hotel after working in India and Dubai, on cruise ships and in Wales, and has now been here for four years. His menus feature a curry of the day alongside Loch Gruinart oysters, locally caught fish and burgers made with beef from nearby Octomore Farm. “We never compromise on quality,” he says. “People on Islay are well travelled. They know what good food is.”

And then there is Ardbeg House in Port Ellen, a once tired traditional hotel that has been transformed into a maximalist extension of the Ardbeg brand. There are 12 quirkily themed bedrooms, a fishing boat suspended over the bar and a theatrical restaurant with a beaten-metal ceiling, bold lighting and tables made from marble bathroom offcuts. It’s an exuberant place, but the food is excellent and well priced. I eat bread made with eight-year-old Ardbeg and thyme; langoustine bisque with pickled fennel and tarragon, then the catch of the day, sea bass, with cabbage, kale, roast potatoes and split beurre blanc. My taxi driver insisted that I try the sticky toffee pudding. My server does the same, so I take the hint and am rewarded with a treacly wedge of cake with whisky ice-cream. Outside, it’s raining again.

Before the Clearances, about 15,000 people lived on Islay. Today, there are just over 3,000. Islay may have been built, in part, on whisky. But increasingly, the whisky is helping build something back: farms, breweries, restaurants, food businesses and reasons to stay.

Ailsa Sheldon was a guest of Hostelling Scotland and Bruichladdich Distillery. Port Charlotte youth hostel has dorm beds from £28 and private rooms from £78 (open late March to early October). Travel to Islay from the Scottish mainland by Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) ferry from Kennacraig or by flying with Loganair from Glasgow. Hire bikes from Islay E-Wheels in Port Ellen from £25 a day for non-electric, £35 for electric, delivery available across the island