Tales of an Amorphic Destiny

West through Whiskey Country

August 28th, 2007 at 06:58pm James

After spending the morning organising accomodation for the coming long weekend, we finally left Anni’s place and made our way west through Speyside. Speyside is the region between the highlands and the east coast and is where around 70% of the world’s Scotch whiskey is produced.

Two of the biggest distilleries are located in and around Dufftown – a place strangely famous for it’s whiskey rather than its beer, despite what Simpsons fans may have expected.

The first distillery that we were to visit was Glenfiddich – one of the largest in Scotland and located in the heart of Dufftown itself.

We were taken on a guided tour and although we were already familiar with most of the processes from our Edradour tour, it was impressive to see a distillery on a much grander scale. Glenfiddich had 24 of the enormous "washbacks" – huge vats where the initial wort is mixed with yeast and left to ferment for several days. We saw several washbacks at different stages of fermentation – those at the most active stage had a huge fan spinning inside them to cut up the mass of foam rising from the brew.

The number of stills was also impressive – there were 13 in the room that we visited and apparently there are over 20 in total!

We finished the tour with the customary dram of single malt and then after lunch we drove a few miles out of Dufftown to visit The Glenlivet distillery.

Having opted against taking another tour, (we were now quite well versed in the art of whiskey making) the helpful lady in the gift shop offered us a dram to enjoy as we wandered around the Glenlivet history exhibition. We gratefully accepted and learned that The Glenlivet was in fact the first legal distillery in Scotland, although apparently the King was very partial to a drop even before legalisation took place!

Afterwards a member of staff was kind enough to take us down to the tastings room, where I was able to try a 20 year old Glenlivet finished in French Oak. Amazing stuff – full of flavour and yet extremely smooth, but alas I couldn’t stretch the budget far enough to take home a whole bottle!

On the way out of the distillery we stopped for a few photos of the distinctive cows that we’d been seeing all over the Scottish countryside. At least we think they were cows…

Final destination for the night was the village of Aviemore, where we’d been fortunate to book in to a guesthouse in the heart of town, right by the steam railway and across the tracks from a most excellent pub – the Cairngorm Hotel. As it turned out a huge Harley-Davidson meeting was taking place that weekend and while sitting outside for a pre-dinner beer we saw more than a few bikers roll in to town astride their noisy but beautiful machines.

Inside the hotel we enjoyed some delicious Aberdeen Angus steaks and the excellent atmosphere was completed by local piper "Spud", who played out the front of the hotel dressed in full Scottish regalia.

Then after dinner a trio of fiddler, guitarist and accordion player (accordionist?) started playing in the main bar. So we moved inside and spent the rest of the evening clapping, singing and enjoying the very well-price local whiskey. Finally went to bed very contented.

Next morning after another huge Scottish breakfast we conveniently crossed the road from our guesthouse and boarded the train to ride the Strathspey Steam Railway. The little locomotive pulling the train took us on a very relaxing ride up to a station that had been used in the filming of Monarch of the Glen and then back again.

Then it was on to a train of a more modern kind as we rode the funnicular railway up to the top of Caingorm Mountain. We had lunch at the top and then took in the scenery from the viewing platform. Fortunately we’d gotten a very clear day and so we could see for miles. Eventually the cold wind got the better of us and back down the mountain we went.

Back in the Sunny we climbed and set a course for Inverness where the next installment of our trip was to take place. Check out more photos of Scotland here.

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