Scotland – Day Five
Posted on: May 26, 2008No comments yet
May 26, 2008 – We woke up bright and early at the Atholl Palace Hotel with a beautiful view of the mountain and river at the base of the hotel. But the view was nothing compared to the first class service we had from the hotel servants; the Royals really had it good back in the day! I never had a more fantastic breakfast and I never felt so pampered in my life.
It was difficult to leave our hotel, but we had just a few miles to go to Scotland’s smallest distillery, the Edradour. The Edradour was founded in 1825, and carries the tradition of brewing only the finest malt whiskeys, not caring about size or quantity as much as quality. We met the owner of the distillery, Andrew Symington, and was very fortunate to have him give us a personal tour of the distillery. It was wonderful being able to have a tour with someone so knowledgeable as we learned about the process it takes to produce the whiskey. One of the fascinating things I learned is that the barleys actually become beer on its way to becoming a whiskey! This occurs after malting the barley and storing it in a wooden cask made of Oregon pine, called a washback. We sampled the ale and it was amazingly fresher than what comes in a bottle. The time it takes to ferment the liquor will increase the alcohol content from 8% to more than 75%.
According to Scottish Whiskey rules, to meet standards each cask is required to be stored for a minimum of three years, but the Edradour stores theirs for a minimum of 10 years, with each cask holding an average of 55-110 gallons. When visiting the tasting room, I was given three bottles of whiskey, aged 10, 30, and 42 years! The more a whiskey is aged, the stronger and more bitter it becomes, but it also becomes much smoother and easier to drink as well. If the whiskey is too bitter, all I needed to do is add some water.
After making sure we didn’t have too much whiskey, we drove to one of the most amazing structures in the world, the Falkirk Wheel. The wheel is a dramatic looking structure performing a vital task, linking the country’s two major Lowland Canals, the Forth and Clyde canal with the Union canal. The gap was recently rescued after years of neglect and deterioration. There was a 70 year time frame when the gap between the canals were unpassable, but the wheel built in 1997 introduced an engineering marvel that cost over $170 million. We were thrilled to find that we were provided with an interpreter for our tour, but stunned and disappointed when we realized Pauline, the interpreter was fluent in BSL and not ASL. We only knew the ABC’s but not nearly enough signs to understand each other! We still managed to have a great time and communicated using gestures. Pauline was a boat driver who occasionally takes the day off behind the wheel to provide interpreting services for deaf tourists. We also met another signer on our tour, Angela, who works at the structure. It seemed to be a very deaf friendly destination!
After our tour, we finally arrived at what seemed to be the apex of our vacation, the storied St. Andrews golf course where we would play 18 holes in the morning. I got goose bumps when we turned a corner and could see for the first time the Royal & Ancient clubhouse between the first tee and 18th green. I could hardly believe I was about to play the same course where world famous golfers such as Arnold Palmer, and Tiger Woods have been teeing off since the 1400s. The New Course where we will be playing tomorrow was built in 1895, and is famous for influencing and establishing the rules of modern golf.
Ready to tee off tomorrow!
Related posts:
