Apr 5 2007

Day 3, Winter in the mountains

Monday, March 19th 2007

After an outstanding gourmet breakfast at our Edinburgh guesthouse, we left the city behind us in the morning and headed north on the A9 freeway. The last remaining bits of uncertainty about driving on the wrong side of the road where fading as we crossed the Forth Road toll bridge. Immediately we started to feel a change in the landscape around us. Rolling hillside pastures rose on the horizon where just a few minutes ago had been city buildings and streets. It was about this time when we really started understand what we where about to do. A feeling of unbridled excitement came over us which intensified with each mile we put behind us. I stopped to check the GPS and the map to make sure we all knew where we were headed. Check. We’re off to Dalwhinnie.

According to the GPS, we were only just over 2 hours drive away from our destination. This realization served to drive home the understanding of how small Scotland really is. With the entire country fitting into a space just under the size of the State of Washington, it’s pretty easy to get just about anywhere from anywhere else.. weather permitting. Within a few minutes of this realization the landscape began to change yet again from lowland rolling hills to what would be come the Cairngorm mountains of the central highlands. The weather that had ben improving in Edinburgh gave way to a cold overcast with traces of snow as the road continued upwards in both latitude and elevation.

With an estimated hour to go before arriving at Dalwhinnie there was no doubt about it; it was still winter in the highlands of Scotland. The snow that had been intermittent became constant. Wind picked up deposited snow from the sides of the roads and the beautiful (we imaged, if we could have seen them) hillsides all around us bringing the visibility down to dangerous distances. This we thought, is what we get for coming to Scotland in March eh? I was beginning to get discouraged when I realized that we were there.

The village of Dalwhinnie lies on a sleepy side road off the A9 at the Drumochter Pass. Just above the village is the famous Dalwhinnie distillery. By elevation it is the highest in all of Scotland and it felt like it. As we pulled into the visitor’s centre parking lot, a young kid was bundled up shoveling snow in a futile attempt to show weary tourists like ourselves where to park the car. Not surprisingly, ours was the only vehicle in the lot when we pulled in.

Inside we found a friendly lady with an strong highland accent, appropriate to our surroundings. From her we discovered that not only was the weather much more severe on the northern slope of the pass, the road was in fact closed along the route we were intending to take later that afternoon. Ok, we’re a day in and we have our fist set back.. no big deal, it’s Scotland in March. At least we can have a nice tour of the Dalwhinnie distillery for our effo…….”sorry” she says, “all of the crew have gone home before the close the rest of the roads an I’m afraid you we can’t offer tours at the moment.” We bought the first of what would be come many whisky tasting glass and took a few photos and headed back South.

As disappointing as being turned away from our first distillery tour was, we actually took it really well. Something about this trip was truly satisfying in the way that even when things didn’t go our way, we were just happy to be there. After a few minutes of consulting our excellent customized printed guide we set sail for Pitlochry, a town which we reluctantly passed by earlier that day in the interest of trying to save time. Later we would come to understand that this about face would be the best decision we made on our trip. As is common when one travels back along a route that had previously been unknown to them, the miles flew by and before we knew it we were heading off of the freeway and towards the sleepy little town. As we exited the freeway the weather cleared and our spirits improved. This would be the last we’d see of a dual carriage-way (freeway) for nearly a week.

Pitlochry itself is a small, picturesque town of a few thousand people. It’s accessibility to Perth and Edinburgh mean that there is an emphasis on tourism in the local economy, but being a snowy weekday in mid March, the town was fairly quiet. As it was still early in the and we were not ready to admit traveling defeat for the day just yet, we drove right on through town and on a little road which lead up into the hillside above. I still don’t know exactly what guided me along that road other than the curiosity of finding out where such a quaint lane lead. Just at about the time I would have stopped the car to figure out where we were going I saw a sign ahead that pointed to the Edradour distillery down a long single track lane through sheep pasture. I’d read about this distillery, the smallest in all of Scotland but hadn’t planned on visiting due to time constraints. Since we were in the area, we made a b-line for their visitor center and headed in.

The friendly and quirky folks behind the bar inside welcomed us with hot tea, biscuits and a small but impressively distinguished selection of single malts from their distillery and all over scotland. When I probed them on the selection I discovered that Edradour is owned by the well known and respected Andrew Sygmington, who is also the founder and owner of the Signatory bottling company. He buys rare and interesting casks from distilleries all over the region to bottle independently. Later that day I would actually purchase a Signatory bottled 1993 Caol Ila from Andrew himself. Meanwhile, we were interested to know more about Edradour and it’s products. While we waited 10 minutes or so for the next tour to commence I sampled their product.

The standard Edradour 10 year is the only expression that can be easily obtained in the United States. It’s actually a very good value in it’s price range, but not terribly exciting. Where we stood however, an entire range of official and one of a kind bottling were available. I went with a 18 year old cask strength which did well to warm me up after a cold Scottish morning.

While on a great (and free) tour of the establishment we saw what equates to an operational artifact of a older time of the scotch whisky industry. They do thing the old fashion way at Edradour. A crew of three people operates the distillery 5 days a week. All the processes are done by hand and the produce a meager 3500 liters (14 barrels) a week. This is a very small operation. Compared to the moderately sized BenRaich distillery which produces over 38,000 liters per week, or Glenfiddich (the largest) which produces over 192,000 liters per week, it seems downright tiny. The stills are large compared to say, the teakettle I use at home, but the are miniscule compared to those we’d see later in the trip. It’s small size allows an attention to detail and tradition that has been lost at many other distilleries in Scotland, and it shows in the final product. Again, not my favorite style of whisky, but very fine none the less.

We were not allowed to photograph the inside of the operating distillery, but I did find someone’s else who did on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73875442@N00/tags/edradour/

After our visit through the distillery, and a stop at the shop to buy a tasting glass and that bottle of Caol Ila from Andrew, we headed into town for lunch and to find a place to stop for the night. As luck would have it we found a great pub with good food, local beer, and a table next to the wood burning fireplace. After lunch we again consulted the invaluable lodging guide from secret-scotland.com, booked a B&B nearby and retired for the afternoon. The rest of the day was spent walking around town, staying warm, and sleeping off the last of the jet-lag. The rest was welcome, we had a long way to travel in the morning.

Pitlochry:

Hillside Above Pitlochry: