Water, wildlife and wonders... a road trip around Scotland COMPLETED 11/6 - Page 57 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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More amazing scenery! I'd love to know how that Aston Martin got there from New York!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Perhaps, James Bond has his registered in NY!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
More amazing scenery! I'd love to know how that Aston Martin got there from New York!
Yes, I bet that was quite the story. We've seen some very nice cars join us in the freight section of some of the Transatlantic flights we've taken over the years, so I suspect that may be how it made it, but I bet there's also a story about why you'd go to that much trouble to bring it over. I know it's an Aston Martin, so that's probably part of it, but I'm willing to bet someone has an emotional attachment to it as well....
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We did talk about James Bond, as I always associate the Aston Martin with him. I'm sure his would be a British registered car, albeit perhaps with the ability to change the number plate.
Monday 19 June – part seven: I bet that was a Christmas Day and a half!
The one and a half hour tour starts with a film that lasts about 10 minutes, and explains the history to Glenfiddich. The distillery was founded here by one man, William Grant, and the first single malt whisky ran from the stills on Christmas Day in 1887. Wow, I bet that was a Christmas Day and a half! It only took nine people to build the distillery, which amazed me.
William Grant’s son realised that they were on to a very good thing here, and decided that they needed to expand and export it, so he decided to literally head around the world to sell it. This was back in 1910, and it took him 361 days, but it was worth it, as he came back with orders from all over the globe. Now that’s what I call clever marketing. Yes:
It’s still a family business today, now into its fifth generation, and the bit I really liked was that one of the people who ran it back in the 1950s was a woman. Fair play to them!
They’ve built up an on-site cooperage, and later on in the tour, we would see video of one of the most experienced guys who does this, and he was amazingly quick. They did this, so they’d have people to maintain the copper stills, which again makes sound business sense to me.
We learnt a bit about the whiskeys as well, although not much, as we’d find out more on our tour. The quickest brewing time is 12 years, but it can be much longer than that. In the video, we saw casks in the warehouse that date back to 1925…
Then we were introduced to Iola, who was a student at the University of Glasgow, studying French and Law. Suddenly this made sense, as one of her colleagues was taking a German tour at the same time as ours.
I have to mention the five Czech motor bikers on our tour. They joined us after the film. It was ourselves, a family of three, and them. At first, my reaction was “great, they’re going to be a nightmare”, but actually they were quite fun for most of the tour… I’ll leave it like that for now…
We were first taken into the distillery area. You’ll have to forgive me, as I really can’t remember all the detail, and I wasn’t taking it in, as I was too busy gawping at everything. They only use three ingredients – barley, yeast and water from a local spring. I know that this is where it all gets distilled down, and I can tell you it was baking in here, which was just as well, as when we arrived it was cold and damp, and that really got into my bones, and I was freezing. The size of these things was just amazing!
Next we went into the tun room. They had a total of 24 of these enormous vats, and each was at a different stage in the process. If you looked inside, you’d see something slightly different in each one.
The last one we came to was the most ready of the bunch…
Next we went into the spirit still room, and here we could only take photos from the balcony, due to the amount of alcohol below us, which is fine. I never have a problem with being told you can’t take photos, if people explain why and the fear of an explosion sounded like a good one to me…
Here they get the head, heart and tail of the whiskey. Apparently the head is too strong at 90% alcohol (the Czech motor bikers were convinced they’d be fine with that! ), the heart is perfect at about 70%, and the tail is too weak. The head and tail are both taken off and then recycled back into the next load in a highly technical way of doing things. Honestly, it blew my mind everything that goes into making one bottle of whiskey and I can start to see why it’s so expensive. It’s essentially all washed in here, but try as I might with my zoom, I couldn’t get a good shot of the washing process going on in the vats.
We headed outside, and I loved the fact that they had so many of the original buildings, it really added to the feel of the place.
Out here, we finally understood as well why the brown and white tourist signs had a Japanese pagoda image on them – can you see it here?
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Very interesting tour so far! We have Glenmore Distillery here in Owensboro that makes which makes bourbon whiskey, and I was just asking Luke today if it gave tours. We need to check that out.
We did talk about James Bond, as I always associate the Aston Martin with him. I'm sure his would be a British registered car, albeit perhaps with the ability to change the number plate.
Along with many other things, all custom with plenty of high tech and futuristic gadgets of all sorts!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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Looks like an interesting tour. When I was in Dublin I did the Jameson and Guinness tours. I enjoyed the Jameson one more as more informative and I remember having a great guide.
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Very interesting tour so far! We have Glenmore Distillery here in Owensboro that makes which makes bourbon whiskey, and I was just asking Luke today if it gave tours. We need to check that out.
Oooh you do - and if they do and you do one, I'd love to hear what's it like.
Looks like an interesting tour. When I was in Dublin I did the Jameson and Guinness tours. I enjoyed the Jameson one more as more informative and I remember having a great guide.
We did the Guinness one, although I don't remember that much about it now. It was a one day trip to Dublin back in 2001....
Monday 19 June – part eight: they’re getting a bit merry….
We next went into a warehouse that housed the 1991 consignment of whiskey, along with a few barrels of 1990 and 1992. Again, we couldn’t take photos in here, due to the amount of alcohol and explosion, and I really wish we could’ve done, as it was an amazing sight. They used either former bourbon or sherry casks. Apparently, they can get the bourbon ones for about £90, as they can only use bourbon casks once in the States under law, so after that, they have no use for them. Sherry casks are more like £500.
They then, as I understand it, take the wood, strip it down, and rebuild it for their casks. Depending what they’re making depends how much goes into which type of cask – it could be 80% in bourbon and 20% in sherry for example, and then they put it altogether at the end of the process, many years later, after the whiskey has rested. They can re-use the casks until the wood becomes completely red across the width of it. Then it’s absorbed as much whiskey as it can, and has to be shelved. Once again, it was all fascinating, and I just had no idea so much work went into creating this stuff.
Here we learnt what Glenfiddich stands for. It’s valley of the deer in Gallic, which now makes sense to me as to why they have the deer as a symbol for their whiskey.
We then headed into another warehouse, and this was very different to the one we’d been in before. They really do take safety seriously here, as you had to leave your cell phones (which had to be in flight mode we were told at the start of the tour), and any cameras in a room, as you couldn’t move through the warehouse with them.
Anyway, here the roof was much higher, and this allows them to stack the casks on top of each other. They got the idea from sherry producers, who do this, and mix up the contents of their casks. They can’t do this, as they have to give a date as to how long the whiskey’s been maturing under law, but they do let the flavours seep out from one cask to another.
While we were in here, a guy started to empty some of the casks, and I could see the panicked look on Mari’s face, as she obviously thought they were going to waste, but Iona was able to reassure her that he was emptying them into a pipe that took them into a vat – phew!
We were then taking into the bottling plant, which is mostly automated. For the standard whiskey, they can run off 136 bottles a minute, while for the reserves, if I remember right, a lot more care goes into bottling those and frankly I’d hope so, given the price tag. I seem to remember they only do five a day, although I may be wrong on that…
While we were in there, an alarm went off, but once again Iona was able to reassure us, as it was just a warning that they needed to do some quality control, which they did. Sadly, that didn’t appear to involve sampling it though…
They also had displays of some of their bottles here, and you can see how important brand and marketing is when you look at them…
From here, we made it back through the complex for the part of the tour everyone had been waiting for… well apart from me!
It was tasting time. I just don’t like whisky. Never have, doubt I ever will, so I’d told Mark he could do the sampling, and I’d drive to the hotel. Iona told us that if anyone was driving, they could either have just one taste, as it wouldn’t put you over the limit ( thanks!) or a miniature bottle. I went for the latter for Mark.
Then it was on to the tasting…
They did a 12 year one, a 15 year one, an 18 year one, and project XX, which I believe was a blend of 20 different things (by now, I have to confess I was hungry and not really paying much attention to Iona as she was talking about all the things you’d be able to smell and taste in each whiskey, which was a bit lost on me…
Now in some of these shots, you may spot the Czech bikers. Despite them saying that at least one, if not two, were driving, in the end, they all took part in the tasting, and towards the end, they got a bit merry, shall we say? They were trying to lift Iona up, which she dealt with very well, but she didn’t get the bottles back in quickly enough, and we know one guy had an extra shot, if not two… remember this.
By now, I was more interested in visiting the restrooms, so I set off there, although I had to come back to the shop, as the visitor centre was closed, and the woman pointed the way to get to them. I just had to get one or two more photos in the amazing lobby area!
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