Cutting the bullshit – the Eden Mill distillery & brewery

From our cottage in Collessie we drove up towards the city of St. Andrews following the A91. About ten minutes before reaching the city, just before crossing the bridge over the river Eden we entered Guardbridge village, turned onto Main Street at the roundabout and followed the road until we reached the not exactly pretty…

From Dream to Dram – Kingsbarns distillery

Many trips to Scotland are generally focussed on visiting Islay or the Speyside region and for a long time, when composing whisky trips, the Kingdom of Fife shy North of Edinburgh has been an area overlooked by many, simply because the last couple of decades the Lowland area at the east-coast of Scotland had nothing…

The Orcadian – Scapa Distillery

After the festivities of the Spirit of Speyside whisky festival, we had decided to take a trip north to the Orkney islands and stay only three nights and two full days knowing we would be missing out on many things as soon as we arrived on the main island. Pre-planned however, were the visits to…

Smokin’! – the Highland Park Distillery

Best hotel view ever (for whisky geeks) It was inevitable. After several years of traveling to Scotland, we never got to get more north as we did on our first trip, when we visited the shop at Clynelish. This year we had decided to go a little further, visit the Orkney islands and the Highland…

120 Valves – Ballindalloch Distillery

Just about the first thing we did when we knew we were traveling to the Spirit of Speyside whisky festival 2016 was contacting Brian Robinson, distillery host at the Ballindalloch distillery to see if we could arrange something during or around the days we would be in the area. Coming from the A9, following the…

Frankenstillery – Loch Lomond Distillery

After a lovely evening in Wishaw, where we enjoyed a massive dinner at the Artisan whisky bar and restaurant with old and new whisky friends, we made ourselves ready to defy the Tuesday-morning traffic of Glasgow and find our way to Alexandria, where we had arranged an appointment to visit the Loch Lomond distillery. Glasgow…

Chivas’ new Crown – Dalmunach distillery

Pitlochry had been good to us overnight, so bright and early we drove up North to go to the Speyside region where we had made an appointment with Ann Miller and Trevor Buckley to be shown around Chivas Brothers / Pernod Ricard’s newest 24/7 and highly energy efficient distillery; Dalmunach. Coming from Pitlochry, we used…

Spirit of Speyside Festival 2016

  After an eventful three week trip to Scotland (week one, two and three for the lazies), that we specifically planned around the Spirit of Speyside festival, annually held in the last week of April. Information about this festival is – except for the info on their website, hard to find sometimes, and for first…

Epic Scotland Road Trip 2016 Diary (part two of three)

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…

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…

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…