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 17th 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
2018-10-05, Glasgow
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.
