2018-10-06 Scotland, We Have A Piper Down!

2018-10-06 Scotland, We Have A Piper Down!

2018-09-24, JFK, New York

So this is the first time I’m taking an international flight since moving to Naples, Long Beach.  Why is that important? It’s not.  However, our morning travels did include getting to LAX at 4:00 am to try and get seats together.  Not a problem, a quick trip to JFK then on to Edinburgh to meet up with Whitney, Justin and Morgan. Unless of course our JFK to EDI flight gets delayed an hour, then another, then we change planes, then the crew goes over their allowable on duty time allowance, then we get delayed another few hours, then the flight gets canceled so that we spend the night in NYC and lose a day on our vacation. 

2018-09-26, Edinburgh, Scotland

So first lesson of the day.  We were immediately corrected in the pronunciation of ‘Edinburgh’.  It’s not pronounced Edin-Burg, its Edin-Buh.  Kinda like how it’s not Louis-ville, its Lullvll… There’s gonna be a lot of pronunciation lessons in this blog but I promise you that none of them will make sense. 

Since we arrived a day late to our vacation extravaganza, the rest of the group went on with the fully detailed out itinerary created by Justin.  Massive thanks to Justin for all of the time and effort put into planning this vacation.  It went off without a hitch, save for us missing the first day.  So in order for us to meet the group, we had to rent our own car to drive up to Speyside.  What did we get?  A seafoam green Fiat 500.  Best part about it, it was RIGHT HAND DRIVE!! If you don’t know how cool that is, it’s like that old lady in Billy Madison that calls herself Miles Davis because she pees her pants.  So right hand drive, in a manual, driving on the left side of the road, with round abouts… no problem.

So a quick 4 hour drive up to Ballater for our first castle and a hawk show with our friends.  When I become filthy rich, I’m going to have my own falconry.  Also I’m going to have a giant owl.  “Where… Where… I mean Who... Who..”

Our first distillery of the trip (second for the rest of the group) is Glenmorangie (Glen-morangy, like ‘orange’).  What I’ve learned from this trip is that I’ve been mispronouncing almost all of these whisky names.  Also, in Scotland, it is called whisky, not scotch.  Anyhow, we chose to forgo purchasing anything from the first distillery and head to Dalmore.  This is where we decide that we really should only be buying things that are not available in the US.  Hence, I end up buying a glass instead.

On our way back to the hotel, we stop Urquhart castle to be just a few minutes late for the last entry.  The castle is on the shore of the famous Loch Ness which is home to Nessie!  We tried to find her, but alas, all we found was brown trout.  Fyi Loch = Lake and Glen = Valley. 

 2018-09-27, Speyside, Scotland

Today starts at Cragganmore for an early morning distillery tour and whisky tasting.  Cragganmore is a Deagio brand who own 28 different distilleries.  This marks the beginning of our whisky distilling education at one of the many tours we will take this trip. Each one is a little different and gives us a bit more information.  I’m pretty sure that I want to try my hand at distilling my own spirit.  Cragganmore ends with a fantastic food and whisky pairing that is surprisingly effective.  It was probably my favorite part of the trip.

Moving on with the day leads us through a quick visit to Balvenie which I am super excited about.  The Balvenie Doublewood was the standard Whisky for me for several years.  It was the best value for the money for a long time, until they upped the price. Unfortunately the distillery is reservation only, and we didn’t have one and couldn’t get one.  Sad Face.  Lucky for us, we were right next to the Speyside Cooperage.  They create the barrels that store these whiskies for “The Big Sleep”.  This cooperage one of 3 cooperages in the TFF Group.  The one in Kentucky builds the new barrels out of American White Oak to make bourbon.  US law states that bourbon must be aged a minimum of 3 years in NEW American White Oak barrels.  From there they are broken down into staves and hoops and sold to Scottish distilleries.  The Speyside Cooperage takes these barrels repairs and rebuilds these barrels.  Barrels can be sanded down and recharred to extend the life of the barrel 2 times giving the life expectancy of each barrel to be around 100 years.  The workers get paid by the barrel and the guy in the middle of the picture is called Crazy Pete.  He and several other Coopers from this cooperage shattered the previous Guinness World Record of 7 mins by assembling a barrel in just over 3 mins.

The last distillery of the day is Speyside Distillery.  They make several very unique whiskies on a gorgeous estate.   Their stills are housed in a stone warehouse that was built by hand by a single man.  It took him over 30 years to complete and he died before the stills ever became operational.  

2018-09-28, St Andrews & Edinburgh

St Andrews is a golf course (7 courses actually) where Scotland claims to have invented golf.  A tee time runs about £160 and requires you to enter a raffle one week before the desired day of play.  Alternatively, you can campout through the night to get put on a list to fill in as a single.  The story was told that this land used to graze sheep.  On this land was also many snakes.  When the sheep herders were out tending to their flocks, they would get bored and hit rocks into the snake holes with the handle of their canes.  Voila, golf. The famous bridge on the 17^th hole crosses a stream that existed back when there was no golf course and was originally used by sheep herders to cross the stream.  The original bridge still remains and was incorporated into the Old Course.

The second half of the day is spent in Edinburgh where we have time for some sight-seeing in Edinburgh Castle.  There was an exhibit on the prison quarters of the castle.  Thousands of prisoners called this place home over the past several hundred years.  To me, it looked like really cool summer camp, except you know, you didn’t get smores. 

A night of barhopping later and we’re back on the road.

2018-09-29, Islay

So Islay (Eye-La) was not part of the first version of Justin’s itinerary, however, I’m a huge fan of very peaty and smoky whiskies which is typical for the Islay region.  The reason Islay wasn’t part of the tour is because it’s a pain in the ass to get to.  It’s about 3 hours from Edinburgh to the ferry, then a 2.5 hour ferry ride.  We hit the ground running with a tour and tasting of my favorite whisky, Caol Ila (Co-Li-La).   Justin double downed and went down to Bowmore to collect a set of tastings for us while we stayed at Caol Ila.  In the rain we raced to catch one more distillery, Bunnahabhain (Bun-a-hebben).  Here, we get to do another tasting and bottle our very own bottle of a whisky available only at the distillery.  

2018-09-30, Islay

The plan for today is to rent bikes and to bike to 3 different distilleries.  That’s all fine and well except for the fact that Islay consistently has awful weather, and the morning is no exception.  However, somehow we get a break in the rain for our first leg to Laphroig.  Laphroig is one of very few distilleries left that malt their own barley.  Malting is the process where they barley is tricked into germinating by soaking it in water then stopping the germination process by drying out the barley in a kiln.  What gives whiskey the smoky flavor is a peated barley.  During the drying process, peat is burned and the flavor is passed into the barley.  Smokiness is measure by parts per million (ppm) of phenolic; unpeated whisky is 0 ppm, Laphroig is 30 ppm, Octomore can be as high as 338 ppm.  Unfortunately we didn’t get to Bruichladdich (Brewed-laddie) to taste the 338 ppm Octomore. 

Scotland is built on peat and each region has its own characteristics.  Peat is nothing more than vegetation that has decomposed over hundreds of years.  During peat harvesting, distilleries have discovered numerous Scottish artifacts including swords, shields, and bodies.  To them, it’s as common as finding a broken down Chevy.

At Laphroig, we got the full experience of tasting, choosing, and bottling our very own whiskies.  Same as Bunnahabhain, except much more immersive.

As we leave for lunch at Ardbeg, the weather shift and the rain starts to pour.  We are biking in a full blown storm in gale force winds.  Of course when we left lunch at Ardbeg, the rain had lifted and the sun came out but it was still 30+ mph winds.  The only problem is that for the ride back to town was almost all uphill and the wind was now a headwind.  We had to pedal downhill!  This made us very late to Lagavulin and we missed our tour.

2018-10-02, Isle of Skye

With just a single night on Isle of Skye, we jump on the road early in the morning to beat the tour buses for our own driving tour of the Island.  It was a 2 hour drive of picturesque scenery and sheep.  Tons of sheep.

We add in a stop at Talisker on our way back to Speyside were we surprised to be so impressed by the quality of their whiskies.

With our mountain pass route closed for construction, we double back the way we came in and manage to catch Urquhart Castle while it was open and on a sunny day.  This time, Holly swears to have found the Loch Ness Monster.  

We manage one more distillery at Tomatin (Toe Mah Tin) before getting to our final stay in Ballater. 

2018-10-03, Ballater

So we decide that today will be a down day consisting of not much of anything.  We do manage to make a lamb stew at home and play several hours of cards while killing a bunch of beer, wine and a bottle of Cragganmore Distiller’s Edition. 

2018-10-04, Ballater

Today we got to golf in Scotland!  We played the front 9 at the Ballater Golf Course which was immaculate and surrounded with beautiful fall colors.  I shot a 52 which is typical of my crappy golf game.  We follow golf with Scotland’s most expensive distillery, Royal Lochnagar.  This distillery produces a hand selected whisky specifically for the Scottish Royal family.  Lastly we end with a super authentic bagpipe lesson from one of the hotels’ employees.  Apparently you start to learn how to play the bagpipes by learning how to play the Chanter.  It’s like a flute-o-phone, except totally different.  The Chanter has an internal double reed that takes a lot of air to vibrate.  Once you know how to play the Chanter, you then have to learn how to blow enough air to constantly make the reeds in the Chanter and the 3 drone pipes vibrate while keeping the bag inflated.  You then alter the pressure of your arm on the bag to allow refilling from your breath and to provide the airflow for the Chanter and drone pipes as you breathe in.  In short, it was hard.

2018-10-05, Glasgow

We ended our trip in true Rob fashion, drinking and eating.  A quick walk up Buchannan’s Street and some souvenir shopping later, we find ourselves at a great whisky bar that had Octomore!  Unfortunately they were out of the 338ppm version, but we did try the 160ppm version which was quite pungent.  The night ended with some bar hopping authentic Gaelic live music! 

The spoils of our trip are a good show of how much fun this trip was.  Overall we tasted over 100 different whiskies and developed the palliate of a true Scotsman.  Thanks again to Justin for planning and the rest of the crew for being a great group to travel with.