A highlight of any trip to Scotland has to be enjoying a dram of whisky, sampled in “the home of whisky” 🥃

So we lined up a few distillery visits and set about tasting some new whiskies.

Unfortunately the first visit (to Talisker on the Isle of Skye) was a no go, as they were fully booked for the day – and the rest of the week! Note to self: plan future whisky tastings well ahead of time!

We spent a few days on Islay later that month and had to visit a distillery there. There’s almost more bottles of whisky there than there are sheep 😂

So we booked into a warehouse tasting session at the nearest distillery to where we were staying, at the excellent Bruichladdich Distillery. We were greeted with classic Islay weather (wind and rain) but quickly settled into our seats made from old casks, surrounded by aging whisky in the dimly lit warehouse. It was magic.

They served up three styles: unpeated (Classic Laddie), medium-heavily peated (Port Charlotte), and ultra-heavily peated (Octomore). Lucky for me, my fellow taster (N) is less of a peat fan, so I got a few extra sips! All this, along with a nice casual chat about the history of the distillery and their whiskies, current production plans and other interesting news. Very memorable.

A couple of days later, I thought I’d check if there was space for another last-minute tasting session… lucky for me, Caol Ila had space that day, so after a quick drive across the island, I joined their well-polished tour. Having been bought out by Johnnie Walker has its perks I guess!

This tour was very interesting, but did have a few moments where they pushed Johnnie Walker products a bit. I prefer the Caol Ila single malts myself, but I appreciate that I probably only got to taste them because of the investment made in the distillery by the parent company.

These tours were great fun, but the best tastings of all were those done with many friends that we managed to spend time with while in Scotland. Great company and a good dram or two!

Slàinte!