Tag: west of Scotland

#30.1 Back to the West

Ardnagain

 

TL;DR: After a very dry January, we are on the road again, direction: West Coast…of Scotland, of course. It is also the first whisky trip with our new vehicle: Mr. Vantastic! First destination of the trip is an “old” acquaintance, the Ardnamurchan distillery. Such a great place, a must-do for every whisky enthusiast!

The year 2023 started similarly to 2022, and 2021: dry. Not exactly the entire January, but still 4 weeks, from the 3rd to the 1st or 2nd of February. Gianluigi managed to sneak in a blood donation right before boozing again: perfect timing!

Because of this, the first whisky trip of the year couldn’t be before February. We were quite impatient, mostly because of a big novelty in our life in Scotland, our first vehicle: Mr. Vantastic, the campervan! We bought this second-hand van, newly converted to campervan in December, after a 1-2 months search. Unfortunately, being December, it had to stay in the parking space for a couple of weeks while we were stuffing ourselves with food in Italy. In January, our maiden trip (to try it out) was a dry one: we went visit the Bamburgh Castle, just south of the border, inspired by The Last Kingdom series, which we thoroughly watched a few months back (“I am Uthred, son of Uthred”!). We learned a thing: sleeping in the pop-up roof is like sleeping in a tent on top of a car, strongly advised against in early January.

  • The team are good to go!

Finally, February came, and we could take Mr. Vantastic out for a more serious trip: the West of Scotland, more precisely Ardnamurchan and Mull! We prepared ourselves and left on the Thursday evening after dinner, so to avoid the morning outbound road traffic from Leith. We actually drove a bit more than planned, until right past Callander. In spite of having a few more hours of sleep in the morning, we woke up quite early because of the excitement: it’s the first time we were going to visit the Ardnamurchan Distillery after they released their single malt! During our previous trip, we could only try their spirit and the Adelphi blend.

  • Big drive, but we got there.

The drive was quite amazing: Tyndrum, Bridge of Orchy, Glencoe, and then the short ferry crossing at Carron: actually very short, as we managed to get on the boat just a few seconds before it left the pier. After the crossing, we drove towards the Ardnamurchan peninsula, on the usual single-track road. We drove past the distillery, because we had decided to park in a spot a couple of miles ahead, where we could just spend the night or at least give us some time and a “nice” recovery walk after the tasting and before driving again. This was a sensible idea in theory (we felt so wise!), but we’ll see how it terribly backfired. By the way, the spot is quite amazing, in front of McLean’s Nose (we were not aware of the new Adelphi blended whisky at the time), a truly stunning view: in spite of the cloud and wind, we could have stayed hours there just enjoying the landscape.

  • Mr. Vantastic and its first distillery visit.

The walk to the distillery took about 35-40 minutes, but we still arrived a bit early. Julie welcomed us, and we browsed the shop for a while before DJ picked us up for the tour. In the meanwhile, we found out that there was no distillery exclusive/bottle your own because paperwork was not there yet, ouch! The curse of bureaucracy haunting us! Tour-wise, we had chosen the “Behind the scenes” tour, a more in depth experience compared to the one we did in 2019, and it also came with a discount because Gianluigi is member of the distillery AD/Venturers club. We were the only ones on the tour, so that meant “free question time” (sorry, DJ!).

  • Colours, colours and more colours.

We started in the dunnage warehouses behind the main building, on two levels. DJ explained us the (very eye-pleasing) colour coding of the casks and gave us some anticipations about future annual releases, which will join the Paul Launois, Madeira, and cask strength expressions. We then moved back to the main building, where we went through production. We hadn’t forgotten how compact the distillery is, and how tiny the stills are, and the boiler fuelled with biomass from the area: all very sustainable.

Teresa admiring where some of the magic happens.

Surprise of this tour, we discovered that not both pagoda roofs are just for aesthetics: a malting floor is being set up and, at some point in the future they will malt some of their barley, with and without local peat: really looking forward to it!

  • A malting floor on the way, yay!

DJ then walked us to the tasting room above the shop, where he started pouring us drams: first, the special for the AD/Venture club (a very nice 7y matured in an ex-bourbon barrel, the alternative was a sherried one). The three drams served as part of the tour were the Bruce-McLean bottled by Adelphi, the Paul-Launois 2021 (which we hadn’t tried) and the single cask CK.339 (unpeated), all three quite amazing, so very difficult to single one out. On that day maybe the Bruce-McLean, but on another day we would have probably picked a different one.

One of our favourites.

Then the mess happened. What we did not took into consideration was the weather. On the way to the distillery, it had started raining but not that much. We thought “oh well, it will go away”. It didn’t. Actually, by the end of the tour it was pouring down. So after the tour we waited a bit, but then we gave up and just left. Of course, by the time we were into the campervan, we were soaked. We spent the next hour drying ourselves up with the diesel-heater and fortunately we had an extra change of clothes and shoes. Teresa just before leaving Edinburgh had asked: “is a second pair of shoes really necessary?” Oh, yes it was.

After some hours drying and warming up, we decided to go get some food in the only local “pub”, the Kilchoan House Hotel bar, in Kilchoan. In spite of the many options on their menu, everything is more or less deep fried, including the sausage Gianluigi ordered, to his surprise. We had a nice wee chat with some locals, although some of them soon left for an event at the community centre club. Again to our surprise, the bar was closed on the next day, which meant no Scotland-Wales 6 Nations game for us. The bartender was very nice though, she kindly allowed us to sleep in the hotel parking lot. Thanks to that we could relax and enjoy a pint.

A night cap after a tough afternoon.

Despite us almost ruining the day because of our dumbness, we had a great time again on the Ardnamurchan peninsula. The landscape is amazing as we remembered it from our trip back in 2019. There is a feeling of calm and peace when visiting such remote spots. About the distillery, they are one of the few producers we really admire, for their dedication and their ethos, and their ability to supply us with incredible single malt (and blends too!) at still reasonable prices. Their club is run properly, it is obvious that they are whisky enthusiasts and, thus, it is made for whisky enthusiasts, not just another money-making machine. We believe other companies should definitely take notes.

Ardnamurchan Behind the scenes

Price: £50.00 pp (February 2023, £35 for the AD/venturers)

Duration: 2hr

Tasting: 3 drams chosen from what available at the bar

Target: whisky enthusiasts and geeks

Value for money: good

Highlights: the walk in the warehouse

Distillery Exclusive: not available when we were there (due to delay in paperwork…d’oh!)

Recommended: even have to ask?

Link: https://www.adelphidistillery.com/

#13 A weekend on the Isle of Arran

Arran, the beautiful

 

Back in 2019, when you didn’t have to sell a kidney to rent a car, we organised a last-minute weekend on the iconic Isle of Arran. 

The Autumn of 2019 was a very different time. Thinking of that period makes us feel a bit naïve and unaware, a bit like pigeons pecking on the road before being run over by a bus.

Things were different also regarding our whisky journey. It had started, but it was still at a larval stage. We had already visited a few distilleries in the US back in 2016 and 2017, in Campbeltown (a year earlier) and up in the Highlands (a few months earlier). We were still in our first year of SMWS membership, and we had barely just found out about their awesome tastings in the city venues. A few months earlier Gianluigi had found out about Mark Gillespie’s WhiskyCast, which became the soundtrack for his runs on the Pentlands. The idea of starting a blog wasn’t there yet. So, we were getting there, slowly but steadily. Things were definitely moving at a much slower pace with respect to the pandemic first wave when, ironically, our knowledge and awareness sped up quite a bit.

Ready to go!

It’s in this context that one day, we decided on a whim to book a mid-November weekend on the isle of Arran. At the time renting a car was much cheaper, so we got a compact (we are quite compact ourselves), we booked one night in a B&B (it wasn’t exactly high-season) and, more importantly, the tours to two distilleries: Lagg and Lochranza! These distilleries are both owned by the Isle of Arran Distillers Ltd. While Lagg was very new at the time, we were already familiar with the Lochranza’s Arran 10yr, having tried it once or twice in bars before. To be completely honest, we hadn’t connected with it right away. We think it was (past tense, very important!) because, as beginners, we were chasing big and bold flavours such as peat or heavily sherry influence, rather than gentle and balanced drams like Arran or Deanston. Nevertheless, it sparked enough curiosity to jump in a car and get to see them!

Teresa studying Ardrossan Castle’s ruins.

The drive from Edinburgh to Ardrossan on a Saturday morning was easy and smooth, not too much traffic. We stopped briefly to check out the Ardrossan Castle ruins (not much is left, to be honest), before getting to the pier. On the boat, we got that melancholic feeling of visiting an off-season tourist destination. And indeed it is, as many people from the mainland, Glaswegians in particular, choose it for their holidays.

The Isle of Arran is called “Scotland in miniature”, because of the very different landscapes in the north, resembling the Highlands, and the south, more similar to the Lowlands. It is roughly shaped like an oval and its main roads draw an “8”, which we intended to drive all along to explore the island. So, as we landed in Brodick, we drove first north, then west, then towards the south-west corner of the island where Lagg is located. This distillery was very new at the time, they had started producing only a few months earlier. They focus on peated spirit, and while their single malt was not available of course (it still isn’t at the time of writing), the available peated range Machrie Moor was produced at the Lochranza distillery.

Inexperienced whisky enthusiasts at Lagg distillery.

The building is beautiful, with the shop on the ground floor and a good café upstairs from which we could see young orchards (we found out later that they were planning to produce cider). Before starting the tour, we admired old pictures showing how life on the island used to be. Then the guide welcomed us and, after covering the history of the distillery and the island, made us try the new make – that was a nice surprise! The tour of the production was good and fairly short, mostly because everything was in one large room, one of the first (but definitely not last) times we had seen this.

Lagg stills.

From the big window behind the mashtun, the view on the sea was just stunning. In the tasting room, we tried some Machrie Moor (the main expression and the cask strength), but the guide also kindly gave us a wee sip of the sherry-finished Fingal’s Cut.

Sorry you can’t see the sea behind the mashtun!

Tired but happy, we took the south road to Whiting Bay, had dinner and, finally, a couple of drams in a bar before going to bed.

It was very sunny when we woke up in the morning. This and a generous breakfast with sea view put us in a very good mood, and we were ready to explore the island! We decided to take full advantage of the nice weather and go for a short hike. We first drove along the coast to get to a car-park where we could take the path to Machrie Moor (yes, it’s not just whisky).

Encounters on the path to Machrie Moor.

The walk was easy and the landscape just beautiful, and at that stage it was so warm that we took our jackets off (who said that the weather is always bad in November?!?). It was fascinating to walk around the archaeological site dating to between 3500 and 1500 BC and admire the circle and standing stones.

Circle stones…
…and standing stones.

Back in the car, we headed north towards the last stop of the day, Lochranza distillery. Formerly known as the Isle of Arran Distillery, it can be considered the trailblazing distillery in this new golden age of Scotch whisky, dating back to 1995. Other than being the first to open on the island in a very long time, it was built in a period when, elsewhere in Scotland, some distilleries were still being decommissioned or demolished following the whisky loch of the 80s.

The same inexperience whisky enthusiasts at Lochranza distillery.

The visit started with a short video about the history of the distillery, its connection with the location and a bit about production. While watching the video, we enjoyed a dram of Arran 10yr. After that, our guide Richard gave us a very entertaining, informative tour. He also spent some time in the courtyard to show us the variety of casks they use, thanks to which we finally started to understand the difference between barrel, hogshead, butt, etc. (again, it was the early days of our whisky journey).

Washbacks at Lochranza distillery… and a wee guest!

At the bar, we were given a sip of their cream liqueur (great gift for non-whisky drinkers), but then we separated from the rest of the group to do a more in-depth tasting. We enjoyed having the tasting room all to ourselves while Richard talked us through an excellent selection of drams: Amarone and Port finishes, Bodega (sherry finish), the Bothy (ex-bourbon quarter cask finished), 18yr….

After the tasting (and the purchase…), we sat at a table outside the distillery for a bite (Italian salami, cheese and bread), with Richard joining us for a few minutes. We would have stayed more, but it was time to get the ferry back to mainland.

And there it happened, we connected with Arran whiskies, confirming how a good distillery experience can make a difference: now we always have an Arran on our shelf! The quarter-cask expression also made us realise how good bourbon-matured casks can be, a type of flavour that since then we have been chasing more and more!

Beautiful Arran, we’ll be back.  

Links :
(No distillery box because we visited these distilleries more than two years ago.)

https://www.laggwhisky.com

https://www.arranwhisky.com