low_delta

We had planned on spending two days visiting distilleries in Speyside. And I needed to see Balvenie Distillery. Their tickets go on sale on the first of the month, three months before the tour. I marked the date on my calendar, but still forgot to check first thing in the morning. The days we were going to be there were both on a weekend, so those tours sold out quickly. For the Monday, we had planned on heading back to Edinburgh, to catch our flight the next morning. I realized that we could do the Monday morning tour at Balvenie, and still get to Edinburgh by dinner time.

We had to get up and get ready, and check out of the B&B, load our luggage, and get to the distillery by 10 am. I think we had to leave at 9:00. I'm sure it was tough for Larry, but I had him up a little early the day before too. We made it with time to spare.

When we went to Scotland in 2013, seeing Balvenie was high on my list. Maybe the top. But when I tried to make reservations for a tour six months in advance, they were sold out. They do only two tours a day, each with only eight attendees. At some point they realized people were booking tours years in advance, so they started the three-months-out reservation system. I was glad of that because we had only settled on the dates for this trip six months out.

Larry and I joined a tour with six Germans. Our guide spoke German, and I'm sure he would have given the tour in German if we hadn't been there. Our fellow tourists were friendly and knowledgeable about whisky, so that was nice. The tour guide was named Tino Took.

Seeing Balvenie has been on my bucket list for Scotland since that 2013 trip. I'm a big fan of their whisky. But also, they're the only distillery with their own cooperage (shared with their sister distillery next door, Glenfiddich), and this is one of only two cooperage tours in Scotland. They also malt barley there, and there are only a dozen or so distilleries that do that. The rest buy from malting companies.

They took us through the whisky making process in order - coopering the barrels, grain storage, steeping and malting, (we didn't see the mill,) mashing, fermenting, distillation, and aging. Then we got to taste five whiskies, including a couple bottlings that are a bit too expensive for me.

We went in a special warehouse which held some very old casks. Our guide let us sniff a cask which held 40-year-old whisky. And then he let us sample a couple of whiskies out of the casks. He told us we couldn't take photos in the warehouse, and the reason was because they didn't want us dropping things in the place. So not allowing photos would reduce the number of times people pulled things out of their pockets, I guess? But since we couldn't have "stuff" in the warehouse, we couldn't have glasses for the whisky sample. This meant he poured it into the palms of our hands. You can't really sip it that way, you just have to kinda suck it up with your lips. But sucking whisky is a really bad way to taste it, since all the alcohol comes up. We were able to buy a small bottle of one of the two whiskies, so I had to guess which one I liked better.

There were two, sherry cask, and not-sherry. I chose the sherried version, because I usually buy the unsherried kind, and this gave me a chance to get something a little different. Later, chatting with the guide, he mentioned my favorite, the only "plain" one in their lineup, had been discontinued. *sigh*

There were five whiskies to taste. I wanted to drink responsibly since I was driving. I asked for a driver's pack, which was five little bottles so I could take the whiskies home with me. But I wanted to taste them and join the conversation, so I had one sip of each, and bottled up the rest. When I got home and went to finish them off, I realized there were only two sips in each bottle. Three sips of each in total. It was hardly worth taking home.

It was a 2.5 hour experience. I loved it.

After the tour we went just up the road to Duffton and found a cafe for lunch.

While we were sitting there, I asked Larry for his phone, and I asked Google for a route back down. There were two routes. One was the main highway, which was quickest, and we could stop at another distillery, but I'd gone that way twice before. The other way was through Aberdeen on the east coast. But Google gave me a new route. It was between those two, and went right through the Cairngorm mountains. I was excited.

So we set out after lunch. I pressed go on Larry's phone. Now Larry had to relay the directions to me. He was a little unhappy about this because Google wasn't talking to him. He had to watch the screen. Larry likes doing things his way, and he trusts Siri, so he asked if he could get a route from Siri instead. I didn't want to argue so I said sure. I regretted this when I realized too late, that we lost our route through the mountains. And Larry realized that the reason Google wasn't speaking was because he had the volume off, on his phone.

So we took the main highway back. But Larry got to see Dalwhinnie Distillery, because it was along the way. I was disappointed because I missed seeing Edradour Distillery, which was right on the way. Third time I've passed it without stopping.

I got off the freeway at the exit that said "Dalwhinnie," not realizing it was the town, not the distillery. My brain was pretty fried at that point in the trip.

The iconic red Forth Rail bridge is off to the left. The suspension bridge, on the left, is the Forth Road Bridge, and the one on the right is the newish Queensferry Crossing.

We didn't stop again until we made it to the hotel. We checked in and unloaded the car, then headed off to the airport to drop it off. Siri wasn't able to give us a route to the rental agency. We ended up driving all around the airport, including through the pick-up area, which cost me 6 pounds. But we finally found it, dropped it off and walked back to the tram station, and made our way back to the hotel. We had dinner at the hotel, and finished our evening with a little Balvenie.