Our Travels: The Whiskey Trail

Scotland...the land of milk and honey...oh I mean Whiskey! Sammy has a project in Aberdeen and so I hopped up for the weekend. We booked a driver so we could go to a few of the distilleries and do some whiskey tasting.

The driver showed up to the hotel at 9:30am (yes, I actually got up early on a vacation day!) and we started off. About 9:35am I decided I needed some coffee - and so we were off scheduled. We were suppose to get to the 1st distillery at 11:00 for the tour then tasting, but because of coffee we arrived at 11:30, missed our tour and had to wait for the next.

The delay was great because it gave me and Sammy a chance to have a drink in front of a roaring fire on a cold rainy day. Very romantic. We were at the Glenfiddich Distillery (http://www.glenfiddich.com/) which is family owned and sells excellent Whiskey. In front of the fire, Sammy tried the 18 year reserve (nice) and I had the 30 year (better!).

Glenfiddich Distillery

After the tour we tried their 12 year and their new Liqueur and ended up buying a small 30 year and the Liqueur. Note to all: Don't buy the Whiskey at the distillery unless you want to pay an arm and a leg. The full bottle of the 30 year at the shop was £150 and the same bottle at the airport was £95.

After we left Glenfiddich we went to Delgatie Castle and had lunch. For the last 650 years the Hay's have owned this castle. It was a beautiful place where the proprietress knew the last Hay (who passed away 9 years ago) and was able to tell us stories about him, his life, and how he restored the castle. If you ever get the a chance to go I reccomend it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delgatie_Castle

Delgatie Castle

I wanted to spend more time at the castle because this has been the only one where you basically have run of the entire place instead of only a few restored rooms, but Sammy wanted to push on and get to the next distillery.

I can't remember the name of the next place we went - I didn't like their whiskey as much as Glenfiddich's. It was too smokey for me.

On Saturday we slept in (surprise! surprise!). Well, actually I slept in Sammy still got up at what I consider the crack of dawn! We rented a car and drove out to Dunnottar Castle.

(http://www.castles.org/Chatelaine/dunnottar/).

It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The castle ruins... the sea... my photos don't even come close to depicting the beauty of the place. Incredible. I had been there once before with my friend Sandra and I was so happy to be able to share that with Sammy.