May 2013 Speyside

Saturday, the 11th

The train to Edinburgh in the quiet coach goes by quickly enough, reading The Distilleries of Campbeltown, the rise and fall of the whisky capital of the world. Recommended, though not for those in search of something easy and thrilling. It is mostly record logs, business correspondence and the likes.
The train arrives in Waverley at 19:20 instead of the announced 19:28 to the sound of an annoyed train conductor, 'Finally reaching Edinburgh. they put a local train ahead of us again -- we could have arrived five minutes ago!' which amuses me enormously.
Murrolo picks us up at the station and we proceed immediately to Queen Street for food and drinks.

Sunday, the 12th

Murrolo has the brilliant idea to cook breakfast. Sausages and eggs in, then off to the station for an early train to Aberdeen. A short but pleasant stay in Edinburgh it was.
The journey is magnificent as always -- I will never tire of the Forth bridges. Once in Stonehaven, we cannot see Dunnottar Castle from the train, frustratingly enough. The plan is to drive back here this afternoon, though. We reach Aberdeen 15 minutes late.
Aberdeen is a grey and extremely dirty city, from the little we see of it. We get lost on the way to the car-rental office, which means we are an hour late when we eventually find it. It is closed. A quick call: the number on the booking form is obsolete. The new number answers -- phew. I am told they sent a cancellation to my booking (after they had sent a confirmation), yet I never received it. The only office open on Sundays is now closed on Sundays. Disaster. I am told we have to go to the airport office: it is open and they have cars. We trawl back to the station for some whisky-spotting (two Cadenhead's bottlings) and lunch (a way-too-greasy macaroni and cheese for me, pizza pannino for JS). We find out the bus to the airport is frequent, quick and relatively inexpensive, which is a relief.

Heather at the Glenlivet

At the airport, the car-rental office is free of customers. Once the necessary paperwork is out of the way, we have a car -- same price too: they reworked my "cancelled" booking. The car is a Kia Venga, which leads to the obvious Venga Boys connection. We will later name it Sabrina, for reasons the reader should know.

JS and Sabrina

All in all, we take possession of the car at 16:00 instead of 12. Naturally, that sort of comes in the way of going to Dunnottar. Oh well.
We are now en route to Craigellachie (pronounce: craiGELlachie). Sabrina is a joy to drive. The scenery is calming and soothing, pastoral and agricultural, laid back. It is not too different from my native shores, in fact. Too much traffic for my liking, but that goes away as soon as we flee the main roads.
We arrive Dufftown and casually drive by Glenfiddich, Balvenie (and I suspect Kininvie) distilleries. Mortlach is a wee way further: I spot it on time, we stop for photographs.
Downtown Craigellachie is but minutes away. A quick drive through the metropolis and we find our accommodation. the host recommends a pub we will never find and another to eat in, which we had already spotted. We go for a walk to the Telford bridge, then off to supper and a dram or five (solid ones, at that!)

Telford pretty much built Scotland

Monday, the 13th

Goodness.

Breakfast is head and shoulders above pretty much any other we have ever had: eggs on French toast for JS, bacon and brie baguette for me. We indulge.

Not too shabby either.

Once replenished, the distillery spotting can commence: Craigellachie, Aberlour, Dailuaine and its lovely, dark-grain-processing smell, and the lovely Imperial, the goal of this trip, a Detroit-like, warehouse-cluttered ghost town, beautiful and sad at the same time. Follow Benrinnes, Glenfarclas, a trap for Taiwanese tourists with a classy tasting room reconstructed from a ship lounge, Cardhu, Tamdhu, where we spot a chaffinch and a flock of siskins before taking a few steps on a rail-road track without rails. Slightly further, Knockando, then Tomintoul rear the back of their heads. At this point, we start seeing pheasants everywhere.

Siskin in Tamdhu

Tamnavulin, Glenlivet, Glen Grant, Glenrothes, Glen Spey are on our path. We never find Caperdonich (it has been demolished), but do pass by Speyburn, where a workman offers a distillery tour; it is late however, and we need a place to stay, so end up leaving (if you read this: another time). To balance it out earlier in the day, we stop for shopping

Words are very unnecessary

 (and drams) in Tomintoul and end up way poorer than we came in. One of the things we try is a Port Ellen 27yo 1983/2010 (50%, DL Old Malt Cask 50º, Sherry Butt, C#DL6836, 528b): light peat smoke and barbecued ribs that slowly unveil a barley taste, which is unexpected from a 27-year-old whisky. Upon being told I have "happiness in a glass," I cannot help but observe how overrated Port Ellen is, as of late. Not that it is bad or anything like that, of course. Simply, there are better drams around for a fraction of the price. 7/10

A flock of siskins and a hidden chaffinch

We then drive North to Elgin, pass BenRiach and Longmorn, but do not stop. The tourist information office is still attended, which helps a lot, since no accommodation was booked. We spend a minute waterfowl-spotting near the pond outside: mallards, mandarin ducks, a

Heston Blumenthal's inspiring buddy

'Let's hope the fat one doesn't see us'

Muscovy duck, swans and gulls. I phone up a couple of B&Bs and find one promptly. We drop our bags, get an unconvincing recommendation for dinner (it would seem that not many places are open, which explains) and end up, after some wandering around town, in a hotel called Sunninghill. The confused staff make me wonder if we should stay (we are asked about seven times which table we want to sit at), but when food is served, we have a great, great late-ish dinner (asparagus salad, nut roast and crumble for JS, salmon and prawn, duck and profiterolles for me). I have a Lochside 1991 (46%, GMP Connoisseurs Choice) to go with it: nose: cannot smell anything, since they poured it in a tumbler. Mouth: sweet and gentle, milky and nicely body-buttered. Finish: very nice yellow-flesh fruitiness (well ripe peach, juicy canary melon and hints of distant passion fruit). Nothing revolutionary or spectacular, but a nice and easy dram all the same. Probably an 8/10 in a proper glass. The table next to us is full of men nearing retirement age talking about golf. Amusing.

Balsamic asparagus

Salmon, herring and shrimp plate...
without herring

Finger-licking nut roast

Duck

Crumble

The profiterolles are disappointing

'Strawberry, whipped cream, choux dough...'

Our B&B is a huge, old-fashioned house, very nice and quiet. The bed

Toung-si nan-peï!

is too soft, though. Sore back in the morning.

Tuesday, the 14th

Breakfast is good, but more traditional than yesterday. Black pudding, though -- yay.

Chaffinch

The whole point of coming to Elgin was to visit the Gordon & MacPhail boutique. They open at 8:30 and I want an early start, so am nervous we only reach there after 9:30. And gutted the whisky section (it is a full grocery store) only opens at 10. At 10, it is off to the races. Glenury, Glenlochy, Kinclaith, Caperdonich, Glen Albyn, ... They are all there. All of them too expensive. The new Glenugie and Millburn are not available and too expensive anyway. I only buy a handful of minis. Disappointing visit to say the least, really. I was full of anticipation for it; the goods are there, but the prices are exorbitant.

Breakfast of champions

Gordon MacSucceed

Off we go and more distilleries we see. We take snaps of Inchgower under a hail shower, then take the tour at Glenglassaugh, who have a whole range of indie bottlings on display. The tour is nice enough, if slightly standard. They were recently bought out by The BenRiach Distillery Co. and are undergoing some works and structural maintenance (the warehouse roofs are about to cave in in parts). Porteus must have made a fortune with Glenglassaugh: not only the mill, but every other piece of metallic device is from the Leeds company. Interestingly, at some point in the distillery's history when it was bought over, the wash and spirit stills were inverted, as the then-wash still was actually smaller than the then-spirit still. The tour finishes in a bonded warehouse, then back into the shop, where we try Glenglassaugh Revival (46%, OB, b. ca 2013) and Glenglassaugh Evolution (57.2%, OB, b. ca 2013). Everyone agrees the latter is better. Ingvar Ronde enters the shop as we are about to leave. I find it an astonishing coincidence, but then no-one else seems to know who he is.
We drive to Banff, missing the distillery site completely. The clerk at the tourist information desk does not know it exists and is stunned to find out she drives by it every day. We are told there is a coastal walk that leads to the location. It is a sunny afternoon, we take the opportunity to put our hiking boots on. After a short and easy walk, we are on site -- not that there is much left to see: they are building flats, but one of the original buildings still remains, I think. Walking back, we spot Russians practising their drive on the coast... and into the sea.

Плоуф

We never find the Macduff distillery in the village of the same name, avoid Fraserburgh and Peterhead, completely overlooking the fact that Glenugie used to be there, and start looking for accommodation an hour's drive away from Aberdeen. We will never find any vacancy. Not in Aberdeen not at the airport, not in a fifty-kilometre radius around it either. Speedbird Inn kindly lets us use their Internet connection to try and find something within driving distance (keeping in mind we need to return the car by 10 tomorrow), but it is a lost cause.
We end up accepting we will have to spend the night in the car. Good thing we are not pedestrians, this time!
Hungry all the same, we go back to Aberdeen for a couple of atypical burgers, follow the Arsenal vs. Wigan game (' weare forced to follow' is a better phrase), then drive out to a remote parking lot for the night.
After a few hours of sleep, some idiots wake us up by parking right behind us and talking very loudly. They end up leaving, but damage done.

Im Fasanerie

The temperature goes down to 2ºC, which prevents us from enjoying the last handful of hours much.

Wednesday, the 15th

The good thing about being so far up North is that dawn starts at 3:30. It does not get any warmer any sooner, though. Before we freeze to death around 5, I decide to drive to the airport, even if it means waiting there for a couple of hours. The journey will warm up the engine and provide a bit of heat, at least.
We reach there a little before 7, write postcards, return the car, take a bus back to the station, indulge in a copious breakfast, buy the whisky we spotted upon arrival and finally board the train for the long journey home. Needless saying we sleep through a lot of it. :o)


Good times. Even the misadventures with the car and the accommodation are an interesting couple of experiences (they were not at the time, of course).
It is definitely not my favourite part of Scotland (quite touristy), nor was it the best holiday (driving prevents from enjoying to the full and it was a bit rushed, at times). Having said that, it was certainly a nice, extended weekender. A little whisky centric, perhaps, hence a good thing it did not go on forever.

The end.