The first week of our 2016 trip to Scotland was a huge success. We met new people, shared a house with close (and new) friends, popped corks with complete strangers and drove around the Speyside region as if we were home. In short; we had a blast. On we go… Monday, May 2nd 2016 As…
Category: exploring
Epic Scotland Road Trip 2016 Diary (part one of three)
Monday, April 25th 2016 As you might have read, we started our trip fresh off the boat at the Lakes Distillery in Cumbria, in the Northern region of England, only just a few kilometres South of Scotland. We drove up to Wishaw to meet up with the #whiskyfabric in the Artisan. Derek and Fiona had put something…
Victorian Dairy farm turns into Contemporary distillery – Lakes distillery
Day one of our trips to Scotland started as usual, with us getting on the boat from IJmuiden to Newcastle. A rather rough night at sea but somehow we got some sleep and arrived semi on time at the harbour in Newcastle. Quickly off the boat, we headed West onto the boring A69. At the…
No Guts, No Glory – Wagging Finger distillery
On the brink of our latest adventure into Scotland, we decided to visit the youngest distillery in the Netherlands. In Deventer – one of the oldest Hanseatic cities in the Netherlands, the Wagging Finger distillery is put together with a lot of experimenting, love and passion, is already operational and bottling their first batch of…
Just act normal, that’s crazy enough… – Kalkwijck distillery
The Netherlands. According to some, cradle of the modern spirits. Aged and unaged Jenevers, Gins, Corenwines, Maltwines, Vieux and sweet liquors, and for almost two decades already, there are also some quite decent Dutch whiskies on the market. Discovering the world of whisky, we – as many whisky enthusiasts, started with Scotland to explore…
Mouth of the River – Bunnahabhain distillery
On our earlier visits to Islay, we had already been to Bunnahabhain distillery, but somehow we had never come around to do a tour or stay longer than an hour or so to take the obligatory panorama picture at their pier, and walk to the wreck a little further on. Last year, we had the…
N 58 58 4.3 / W 2 57 19.9
Far up the North of Scotland,on the same geographical latitude as the Swedish Stockholm and Norwegian Stavanger, there is a group of British islands called Orkney. On their voyages, the Vikings landed there centuries ago and according to the many Orcadian myths and sagas, they most likely used Orkney and the Shetland islands as their…
Swords and Feathers
From the Newcastle ferry, where we – as many European Mainlanders – arrive with our own car, it is an almost straight West when following the whole A69 to Carlisle, where our route turns North following the M6, towards our beloved Scotland. It only takes very little time when we cross the river Sark, which forms…
Stand together, fight together
It is the beginning of July 2015, Wimbledon is in its final stage, the Formula-1 circus has landed in Silverstone, and here – in the Netherlands – the Tour the France is about to kick off during the hottest day recorded in years. This takes us to go mesmerizing about what we were doing only…
A lot of But(t)s, howevers and althoughs
Our first time in Scotland was only in 2012. In our fully packed two week programme we had managed to squeeze in a two-night stay in a (great) B&B, see all of the eight distilleries and fall in love with the Queen of the Hebrides: Islay. This was at the start of our journey, and…
#WhiskyFabric Gathering – Feis Ile 2015
Plans for the Feis Ile 2015 festivities were made over a year before, where online chats began about the 200th year celebrations of Ardbeg and Laphroaig and how cool it would be to be able to meet all of the #WhiskyFabric people on Islay. Most people we had met only online so far, and we…
Whats cooking…?
Almost two years ago we made our first quick visit to Zuidam Distillers in Baarle Nassau, in the south of the Netherlands. Plans to go back to them were made a while ago already, and we were looking forward to seeing the place again with their new stills added to the distillery and other…
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