The Speyside region. A region not really designated by natural boundaries, or clan ownership claims, but roughly defined by having access to the water coming from or flowing into the river Spey. Home to roughly 50 distilleries in the mid-east of the Highlands between Inverness and Aberdeen, hugging the North Sea coast. In the triangle…
Category: exploring
Entering Speyside
“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…
West is Best!
Our adventures on Islay had ended and the mainland could not be more welcoming. We were treated to the smoothest ferry crossing ever, which means we arrived perfectly on time of the Calmac time schedule. Having boarded the second car and disembarking in that same order, a strange feeling came over us; we kind of…
Islay Farewell: Seafood Feasts, Ferry Chases & FOMO Frenzy!
We bade farewell to Bruichladdich for one last time on this trip and decided to take the remainder of the day off, do some reading in the sunshine and go out for dinner at the Balaclava Byre, not 5 minutes from the Little House, just outside of Port Ellen going North. We had been on…
Islay Sunset Symphony
After having said our ‘see you tomorrows’ to our turquoise friends, we drove to Port Ellen to get a cup of tea at the Port Ellen hotel bar, who had opened their gardens for the lovely afternoon. The hotel was purchased by LVMH in 2022 and will be completely overhauled in 2024, after Feis Ile….
Everything, everywhere All at Once
Okay. Slow down a bit. We were now only a couple of days on the Island and had to force ourselves not to do everything, everywhere all at once*, and deliberately tried to stay on the North end of Islay, with the smallest of the Bowmore Cottages as our place of rest and the most…
Islay Calling!
Islay, Queen of the Hebrides. While we were planning the trip back in September 2023, we were checking to go to Skye, drive the NC500, do some exploring of cities and villages we had never visited and do some sightseeing of waterfalls, ruins, large standing stones and whatnot. For some reason though, we kept looking…
Dreich, inside and out
An early start was out of the question. The day ahead of us was as much a question for us, as it was for anyone else. Having “forgotten” a proper raincoat and the weather forecast and a small burst pipe in our hotel room told us we should have, we just had to treat ourselves…
On y Va!
Whoever invented WiFi on board of a ferry sailing in international waters should be thanked for their services, although they may not have thought about possible emails you receive. If said emails are about a cancelled ferry further in the trip, one can not follow up over the phone without breaking the bank. Stress, during…
Dear diary…
Scotland, April 2024. After the hiatus of about five years, we are finally back in Scotland. Boy, have we missed being here. The journey here was, as ever, not that eventful and mainly consisted of us waiting in the car for a boat, looking at the sea, worrying about whether or not the weather would…
DEXTER’S LAB
Well, that was quite a fermentation period… At WhiskySpeller HQ we have been handling a pair of overflowing washbacks the last couple of weeks. Cutting the froth didn’t quite ehm… cut it, so we decided to switch to an anti-foaming agent to clear the schedule a little. Repairs have been done, both stills are undamaged,…
DARNLEY’S
In 2016, we visited the Kingsbarns distillery in the Kingdom of Fife for the first time. Then, they were already producing and casking single malt spirit for a whole year, which means that it has now come of age and can be called whisky. Except for an exclusive selection of their founders’ club members, it…
WhiskySpeller 