Scotland 2019 17: Edradour Distillery

Pitlochry is home to the enormous Blair Athol distillery (part of the even larger Diageo Group); but, nestled in the hills above the town, lies Edradour which - until recently - was Scotland's smallest distillery.  This particular honour has now been lost owing to the advent of micro-distilleries, but it is still pretty tiny compared to the "big boys".  As well as being visually attractive, with distinctive white/red buildings and lots of picket fences, the size of the operation makes it very easy to understand what is going on.  The production of whisky is - quite literally - under a single roof, allowing the visitor to see everything from mill to still, pretty well without moving.

Unusually, the tasting came before the tour on this occasion, but it allowed our guide - Dylan, smartly dressed in a kilt of the Edradour tartan - to provide background information before entering the distillery proper.

As can be seen from the pictures below, everything is under-sized in the Edradour distillery.  The four washbacks are far smaller than would be expected elsewhere, and the distillery is the last in the country to employ a traditional stainless steel "Morton Refrigerator" which uses cold water to chill the wort from the mash tun.

The diminutive mash tun, being fed directly from the output of the mill.

Using Dylan for scale, it's clear that even the stills are pint-sized.

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.

Hebrides 28: A Wee Dram and Lunch

We could have been forgiven for missing the distillery first time round, as  we discovered later that the location was originally the hatchery for a fish farm (and with all the charm which this entails).  We talked to a chap who was cutting holes in a huge up-turned hatching tank so that the cows could use it for shelter in the winter.  Waste not, want not, I suppose.

An enthusiastic lady showed us around the distillery, which had only been going for 6 years or so.  It was all shut down owing to the low water levels in the river (used for the distillation and the cooling), but we were allowed to taste the wares.  Only a 3 year old was on offer, and it tasted rather raw.  Pleasant enough, but not very refined yet.  Apparently the next whisky to be released will be a 10 year old, so at least another 4 years to wait for that.  At £35 for 50cl, I'm afraid I declined to buy a bottle.

By the way, Abhainn Dearg is pronounced Ar-vain Jee-ag, and means "Red River" in the Gaelic.

One of the Lewis Chessmen, which feature as the eponymous bystanders in Peter May's book.

All the charm of a cattle shed or a fish farm.  But wait - it was a fish farm!

We then headed back towards the island of Great Bernera, knowing that we'd seen a "home cooking" cafe on the road.  We found it - an old schoolroom - and the food was worth waiting for.  Anywhere that has a sign reading Please help yourself to our home-baking is alright with me!

Suitably fortified, we then headed for Great Bernera itself - a fine place for an afternoon's sojourn.