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…
Category: scotland
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…
A WHISKY PILGRIMAGE
Driving through the beautiful Kingdom Fife, we find ourselves nearing the town of Newburgh towards a location that should be a pilgrimage for whisky lovers. Where in the old days Grey Monks grew a diversity of fruits from their own orchards, kept bees for their honey and mead and harvested barley to brew and distill…
THE BORDERS DISTILLERY
The Scottish Borders. An area in Scotland we have mostly passed through, when driving on the coastal A1, trying to reach a more northern destination when coming off the boat at Newcastle upon Tyne. Little did we know that the A696 – the “other” road leading north from Newcastle, would merge with the A68 at…
LEG THREE OF THREE
Because three weeks of touring through Scotland is quite a bit to digest in one read, we decided to gather our notes and split the trip in three more edible parts. Mind you, the first, second and third parts are just a resume of what we have been doing and all distillery visits will be…
LEG TWO OF THREE
Because three weeks of touring through Scotland is quite a bit to digest in one read, we decided to gather our notes and split the trip in three more edible parts. Mind you, this second part is just a resume of what we have been doing and all distillery visits will be getting their own…
LEG ONE OF THREE
Because three weeks of touring through Scotland is quite a bit to digest in one read, we decided to gather our notes and split the trip in three more edible parts. Mind you, this first part is just a resume of what we have been doing and all distillery visits will be getting their own…
BenRiach Triple Distilled
During last weeks’ Spirit of Speyside festival, we were invited by the BenRiach’s Global Brand Ambassador Stewart Buchanan to join him in a tasting of their newly released triple distilled expression. In one of the distillery offices, a table was lushly filled with a selection of cheese, fruit and charcuterie, plus five mystery drams. Starting…
The Viking Legends
“Hello. My name is Highland, and I am a Viking.” Alas, we, are not Vikings. We have sold a small piece of our soul to the Orkney Islands, but we shall never be as Viking as Highland Park, the Orcadian whisky who have never hidden their rich Nordic heritage from the islands North from Scotland,…
Little Black Hill – Knockando Distillery
During the heydays of the Scottish Whisky industry in the end of the nineteenth century, dreamer, gambler and entrepreneur John Tytler Thompson decided to build a new distillery on the banks of the river Spey. He commissioned acclaimed architect and engineer Charles Doig to build him a modern distillery, the first Speyside distillery to be…
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