Category: whisky

I started the morning at 5AM catching up on live blogging Scotland. Then I had a walk past Huntly castle and the adorable town of Huntly. It reminded me of towns in Napa and Sonoma in a way, in that it’s all cute all-too clean small-town goodness, except in this case it’s 400 or so years old and not created by some entrepreneurial developer.

We drove to the Ardmore distillery, which has a relatively new single malt on the market despite folks distilling whisky there for many years. It’s one of the primary single-malts in Teacher’s Highland Cream, which is a blended whisky once popular in the US and still popular in the UK and other markets. The distillery isn’t open to the public for tours, yet is all shiny and new-looking despite its age. They do a good job keeping things clean.

We then headed off to a local estate now owned by the Scottish trust, had a tour, then a great tasting session of Ardmore and Laphroaig (also owned by Jim Beam). We were lucky enough to sample a Laphroaig 27-year-old whisky that was just terrific. I highly recommend buying a bottle if you’ve got a thousand bucks laying around.

We hopped back onto the bus, our second home, and drive for a few hours to the Glenmorangie House, an incredible hotel on the sea owned by the distillery. For dinner that night we were greeted by a bagpiper (Hooray! Finally!) who announced the meal, then later recited the traditional Robert Burns haggis poem. The cook even made veggie haggis for little old me so I could finally try some.

While I passed out early, the rest of the crew stayed up to three in the morning. I’m uncomfortable in my new role of party pooper.

Labels: scotch, travel

By the way, the photos from my trip can be seen on my Flickr page here, organized by day and distillery. I’ll be adding more pictures as I go along.

Labels: scotch, travel

This morning I feel much better after having suffered from near-fatal jetlag the whole trip. I was averaging four hours of sleep or less since the day before the trip began, but last night I finally caught up and had nearly ten hours’ worth. It was easier here, as we’re staying in the hotel adjacent to a castle in Huntly.

Yesterday we rushed out of the not-as-fancy hotel to drive across the mountain towards the Spey river and the famous Speyside whisky region. Most of the group then had their own death-defying experience canoeing down the Spey river. Almost all of them tipped over, up to three times, in the freezing water. One writer said, “Just minutes ago I was curled up in fetal position on the riverbank.” When the four of us smarter folks who declined the experience showed up at the end point, everyone else was shaking like wet chihuahuas and had in their eyes the crazed stares of people who just survived something awful and had a new appreciation for life.

What I was doing instead was visiting Ballindalloch castle, where we were greeted by the family who lives there and owns it. They had the affected accents and mannerisms of the moneyed gentry that you couldn’t pay a character actor to imitate better. They were awesome.

Afterwards, the river people dried off and we went to the Speyburn distillery. The place doesn’t have a visitor’s center, so we were given the close-up tour. What I never realized about scotch production is that there are two different steps to prepare the barley. First you soak it so that the barley germinates, then you dry it out at just the right moment. This is now mostly done at centralized malting houses rather than onsite at distilleries as it was in the past. (The pagoda shaped buildings many scotch distilleries have are the old roofs of the drying rooms.)

After you (now) buy your malted and dried barley, you have to grind it up, then soak it again several times to release the sugars. Only then does it go to the fermentation tanks, then on to be distilled twice. We tasted the products of the distillation in the barrel room, sampling the entire range of Speyburn and Old Pulteney.

We headed off afterwards to Dufftown where we were given a cooking lesson by the chef at A Taste of Speyside restaurant. It was tasty stuff -even my veggie version was delightful. Then we checked into our lovely hotel where I skipped dinner and slept through the night. Ahh. I”m up at 5AM but after 10 hours of sleep that doesn’t bother me at all.

That’s right folks- two days in a row without bagpipes! My whole theory about this trip has so far proven wrong.

Labels: scotch, travel

Yesterday we visited the Royal Lochnagar distillery, a very small, pristine place located next to the summer residence of the Queen of England. (The distillery was there first.) On the drive here the landscape turned from lush and green to tall rocky hills covered in heather- which looks like an ugly brown bush when it’s not blooming.

Also on the way here, the back door of the shuttle bus popped open and someone’s luggage fell out onto the street. We turned around and went back a few miles to find a lady holding it by the side of the street waving us down. Nice people, the Scots.

But here’s what’s not nice: no bagpipes all day! Can I get a piper up in here?

Labels: scotch, travel

Scotland Day One- Bagpipe count: 1

I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of bagpipes involved on this press trip. When I went to Mexico on a tequila trip we had one to three different mariachi groups per day. I think it’s gonna be like that with bagpipes, which are just as loud, but at least there’s no singing.

Whoops- scratch that. We had a singing Scotch harpist at dinner. But she was soft and gentle, like the rolling heathered hills of Dunkeld.

The folks at the Aberfeldy distillery (Aberfeldy single malt is the main flavor component of Dewar’s blended scotch whisky) claim that the soft and gentle countryside is reflected in their spirit, which has a heather-honey aspect to it, no real burn to speak of, and a dry, sandalwood with a touch of peat finish. Does whisky reflect terroir, or is this just convenient? We’ll see.

Labels: scotch, travel