Scotland 2019 15: Kingsbarns and Craighead

The Kingdom of Fife is not the first location which springs to mind when thinking about Scotch Whisky, but in 2014 a new distillery was set up at Kingsbarns in one of the remotest part of the East Neuk.  As well as whisky, the distillery is cashing in on the current interest in gin drinking.  Not only is gin very popular; but, unlike whisky, it doesn't need to be aged before it can be sold.  As a result , it's a way of keeping the distillery in business until the whisky is of sufficient maturity.

Given how young the whisky would have been (a maximum of five years old, with anything less than three not even deemed worthy of the name), we opted for a tour of the gin distillery.  The gin is sold under the brand Darnley's: named after the ill-fated husband of Mary Queen of Scots, who met his future bride at Wemyss Castle - just down the road.

The tour - and tasting - were excellent, with plenty of opportunity to find out about the botanicals used in the distilling process.  The still itself is tiny, meaning that the gin is produced in relatively small batches.  Interestingly, the botanicals are prepared into what look like overgrown tea bags, guaranteeing batch-to-batch consistency as well as making the cleaning job easier.

The weather was still very changeable when we left the distillery, but we decided it was worth going for a walk around Craighead at the tip of the East Neuk peninsula.  A quiet and peaceful place, give or take the risk of being mown down by low-flying golf balls!  The Golf Club was surprisingly welcoming to walkers, in fact, with well-maintained paths from the car park to the beach.  Something to do with it not being owned by the 45th President of the United States, perhaps?

After a passing shower we were treated to a complete rainbow over the beach, with only a few birds for company.  Perfect.