Let’s Go for a Drink

Which was all about a 50-minute education involving tastings, video films and a ‘Barrel Ride’ into ancient Scotch making.

Half an hour into the countryside punctuated with fat, grazing cows and farmsteads, I arrived at the Glenkinchie Distillery in the tiny Lowlands village of Diageo. As I stepped inside the amber-toned Scots-styled oaken interiors, the distinct odours of fermentation and processing pressed their way through the doors.

Soon I knew exactly how water rich in minerals transforms into a classic drink with inimitable character.It’s all got to do with the H20 in the Scottish Lowlands, Highlands and western Isles, where the water from the springs and streams is pure and laden with minerals.

In the malting process, ripened barley is soaked in water, its germinating process arrested by drying it in kilns.

Peat, or the fully dried malt barley, is milled to convert it into grist, a coarse barley flour. This is mixed with hot water of varying temperatures which releases the fermentable sugar. Wort, the sugary liquid with a strong odour which emerges, is placed in wooden vats called wash backs to blend with yeast and to ferment. The froth created through this fermentation is called barm. The by now alcoholic liquid, or wash, is distilled and stored in oaken casks where it acquires its trademark amber hue. It is matured further in the damp confines of sherry, port or Madeira barrels. Now for the best part. A ‘nosing’ and tasting session at the Glenkinchie’s bar tables.

Fragrant, rounded, smoky—my senses reeled with the variations in flavour and aroma as each whisky dram was introduced. The exercise left me light-headed and warm.

It was windy outside as I drove past dazzling lemon-yellow carpets of rapeseed flowers and the custom-mowed hectares of golfing green edging the coastline along St Andrew’s Bay and town.

There were tiny picture-postcard villages along the way—Anstruther, Crail, and Kingsbarn with its single-bench bus stop and Victorian post office. And villages with unpronounceable names like AuchterMuchty.

Though all original Scotch whiskies hail from a small geographical area, each has a unique taste, flavour and feel.

I was to discover this even more as I drove through Dundee, upwards to Crieff in the Highlands, a quaint one-street town lined with cheerful cafes, bars and period buildings.

At Hosh, a village tucked between tranquil pines and Highland fir, Scotland’s oldest distillery—Glenturret, established in the 1800s—stood by a glassy burbling stream. Here I went through the enjoyable Famous Grouse experience, imbibing Britain’s best loved whisky at the Famous Restaurant and Dramming Bar. Accompanying the spirits was some excellent Scottish Highland cuisine—portions of well-smoked and marinated Angus beef with radish wedges, giant jacket potatoes with melted butter, and grated Leicester cheese and a sampling of tender venison.

As I drove back down the smooth country roads cutting across verdant slopes, the lingering wisps of all of Uisge Beatha’s attributes—oak, heather, charcoal, peat, hay—danced their mystical dance on my tastebuds. And in the distance, the crisp notes of a bagpipe waltzed in the air.