Springtime songs performed by the birds in front of our sleeping room window, a distant sheep baaahs a good morning to the world while the early morning sun is chasing the mist away from the fields, creating pearls of morning dew on the sprouting barley. There are worse places and moments to wake up, as…
Category: whisky
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…
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…
Clan MacMorland
Wullie & Gerie MacMorland When you are alive and breathing in the Netherlands and are in one form or the other enthusiastic about whisky and passionate about good food, there is a good chance you have heard about Wullie MacMorland from Hielander Scottish Restaurant in Alkmaar. Besides running the restaurant & whisky bar, he is…
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…
Smokes on the water of life, and a bottle of rum
We have been to several festivals in the Netherlands and love finding new festivals to go to and discover. At most events we find the same tables and selections of whiskies, and the only difference seems to be a bigger or smaller location. After a while, there is less and less to discover whisky-wise, and…
Maltstock 2015
Warning This lengthy article covers many of the relaxed events happening at Maltstock 2015. It may cause a relaxed jealousy, start you (relaxedly) drinking whisky or trigger uncontrolled (but very relaxed) urges to purchase relaxed tickets for the next edition (here) After the 2014 event, we (as everybody else) were offered a €25,- discount per…
WhiskySpeller 