Wed 21 Aug - Forres, Scotland

Whisky distilleries... Hey, had to be done in this part of the world...

After breakfast and a lengthy chat with Pat, one of our hosts, we were in the car driving into distillery central which apparently is Dufftown. At the outskirts of Forres, we found a sign pointing to the attraction of Sueno's Stone, so we decided to check it out.

The Sueno's Stone originates back from 9th or 10th century, is referred to as "Pictish art" and depicts a battle scene including beheaded people, assumed to be of soldiers from the losing side of that battle. Who was fighting who is still unknown.

And now the stone is encapsulated in a glass cage...

We drove on to Elgin where we then went south. Along the way, we spotted a fly fisherman. We wanted a better view so went through a gate into a paddock. Di was watching out for the cow poo but the horned distributors of the poo may have been more of a worry...

This looked idyllic.

Then another fly fisherman on the other side of the river.

OK, no other reason to include them here other than that they looked great and it made us think of salmon or trout for lunch.

Our first planned stop for today was Speyside Cooperage.

The Visitor's Centre in the middle with the very much still in use cooperage operations to the right.

We booked ourselves into a tour for £3.50 which was well worth the money. After a short but very informative video, we had a guide taking us upstairs to an englassed viewing platform where we could see all the action on the floor.

And action it was. It was loud and the coopers were working fast and furious. Apparently, all coopers get paid per cask (no, it is not called a barrel as you will see later on).

The coopers either enlarge recycled and smaller casks from the US from where bourbon has been distilled as a cask can only be used there once by law or making brand new casks. The former activity is the far most common today due to cost and better result. In fact, we were told that the team had not made one single cask from scratch this year.

We asked about the working conditions of the coopers. Apparently, they get holiday pay, but no sick leave and as mentioned before get paid per completed and QA tested and approved cask. Their pay is roughly twice the national average but for that money they are making 20-25 casks in a single day.

This cooper had been working at Speyside for 43 years and he was still very fast and looked very skillful.

So, cask vs barrel. A barrel is a cask of a specific size as this board explained. There are three other standard cask sizes.

This machine is applying brute force to get the last of the rings onto the casks and tighten them all, then the lid (called a head). You can clearly hear the creaking from the wood as the pressure was applied.

All casks are going through Stress Testing before being given the sign of approval... And confirming a future payment to the cooper. If not approved, back to the cooper to redo before he gets paid.

Speyside Cooperage also takes on apprentices who need to be on the job for 4 years before considered qualified. If this guy was an apprentice, then he was one of the older ones. Our guide told us that they had recently taken on several lads aged between 16 and 20.

A fun game to the visitor; put together a cask from these pieces. We didn't try but apparently it is a lot more difficult than what it looks like.

We dropped into Speyside Cooperage's cafeteria for a cuppa each once we had been sufficiently amazed with all the goings on the workfloor. Of course, the casks can be used 2,3 or sometimes 4 times after which they get reused again, a freshen up shave and charring if they will continue to be used for whisky or else for things like furniture. The whole cafe was furnished with cask tables and chairs.

Outside was more inventive reuse of old casks. No, the guy to the left...

These were European oak casks used for wine - holding 6,000 litres. Di inhaled deeply...

Then on to whisky central - Dufftown. It's not much to look at but we stopped in at the Tourist Info office to identify where we could tour and taste (ideally for free).

We didn't visit the Whisky museum - we figured we had seen enough old Whisky Bottles on the night of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

The Tourist info guy recommended Glenfiddich as the tours there are free. Perfect for us Whisky novices and cheapskates.

It is also a nice old distillery - established by William Grant and hand built in 1887.

We were convinced that after a few glasses some people might start looking for Nessie in this pond. Hang on...what are those bubbles?

We feel a free tour here is a good deal - the most awarded Malt is a big claim to fame in this part of Scotland, which has 50% of all scotch whisky production.

One of the original buildings that William Grant built with his bare hands (and those of his 9 children). Glenfiddich means Valley of Deer so the mascot seems very appropriate.

Di was keen to get started...

While we waited for our 12.45pm tour to start we read about the family history and iconic moments. Hmmm - production increased during American prohibition - to Canada maybe?

Di still keen...

Our first stop was a short video which was all form and no substance. Terrible. It was like a 10 minute TV ad.

But from that point on the tour was fantastic. Our guide took us into the works of the distillery and stopped to explain various processes.

Step 1 milling malted barley.

Step 2 - mashing with heat to get the sugared liquid from the barley. The chat that remains (with some other waste) gets fed to cows and contains about 1% alcohol, which we think goes a long way to explaining why the cattle here seem to sit a lot.

The mash...

Hans about to burn his fingers on a hot tank...

Step 3 After cooling the mash comes here to mix with yeast and ferment for a few days (called washing). The smell in the air is strong.

Each tank is filled with 44,000 liters and the volume expands with fermentation.

Hans keeping an eye on the rising fermentation foam.

As we wandered we saw this cute old delivery truck.

Another cute old relic...

Ahh - now the serious stuff begins. Step 5 - double distillation. These are original copper tanks designed by William Grant and repaired or recreated over the years.

They get serious spirit from one of these - the one on the left...

Then distilled spirit is barreled and stored here for a minimum of 12 years. Some much longer. No photos were allowed but Hans was sneaky. Gotta have one...

The grand finale. Whisky tasting. 3 different aged Glenfiddich were on offer; 12, 15 and 18 years old.

The Whisky connoisseur...

You could tell by the colors which Whisky was the youngest and which Whisky was the oldest. Top is 12 years, left is 15 and right is 18 years old. Guess which one was the smoothest...

Nice colour, and with a hint of vanilla... Or similar...

We decided to stay at Glenfiddich for lunch. This room was part of the original destillery from back in the 1880s and had been converted into a great space for a restaurant.

Lunch was Cullen Skink for Di and "luxury" seafood pie for Hans. Both were absolutely delicious. We were mightily impressed with Glenfiddich, a Whisky which up until now held no particular weight with us.

As Di only had soup for lunch, she also ordered a Whisky soaked cake. It looks like she is planning her attack here...

As the afternoon had been predicted to be rainy, we then went back to Forres via a stop at Tesco for stay-at-home dinner ingredients (read picnic as we have no cooking facilities) and some sandwiches for tomorrow's lunch.

Back at Uralla B&B, Don and Pat let us use their washing machine to do a load which was very generous of them. Some Aussies from Sale in Victoria checked in for the night. Di met them but not Hans.

We also tried to book more Scottish accommodation but it had proven to be tricky for the areas that we would like to go to. Either booked out or very expensive. We are clearly in high season at the moment and next Monday is also Bank Holiday in Scotland, I.e. long weekend. We got this weekend confirmed until Monday morning up in Castletown at the very northeast, but we have nothing yet beyond that. Hmmm... Think outside the square...

For now though, good night.

 

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