“Falling Down a Mountain” turns out to be a cafe with coffee brewed from freshly ground beans and the best homemade carrot cake we have had on this trip. Well worth the one mile detour before turning our heels and driving the mile back on General Wade’s Military Road to cross the river Spey for the first time this trip. A delicious drive on the weaving smaller roads follows, until we arrive at Kingussie and are kind of forced to follow the A9 further north for an obligatory stop at the Tomatin distillery shop to pick up a bottle of their cask strength Bourbon matured hand bottling. True bliss.

Having made good time, we fill Cliopatra with a liquid meal of E10 for her to continue purring and directing us further into the Speyside area. Down the A938 and A95, through villages with more and more familiar whisky names like Tormore, Ballindalloch, Charlestown of Aberlour and Craigellachie, each with at least one iconic distillery at the side of the road, to make clear we are nearing the heart of the Scottish whisky production industry; Dufftown.

It had been a long day with an early start, where we had been waiting for a ferry, had taken a quick nap during the crossing to the mainland and experienced the lovely drive from the Kennacraig terminal up to Dufftown. Having acquainted ourselves with our Dutch hosts of the Gables B&B and settled ourselves in our residence for the coming nights, we enjoyed an evening in their whisky snug, with the hosts and some other guests, until our eyelids got the better of us and sent us to our comfortable beds.

We were having only a couple of days in the area, and with little time to spare, we had booked ourselves a tour at a distillery we had not yet visited. Not that far from the B&B, a small village called Rothes holds a handful of distilleries. Glen Grant, the Glenrothes, Glen Spey, the former Caperdonich distillery – now the Forsythes copper factory where many of the copper stills to be seen in Scotland are crafted, and, slightly outside of town up the road from Forsythes, Speyburn distillery.

Cheers,

Thomas & Ansgar