Day around Aberlour

No one may pass!

Number of distilleries seen: about 10 if not more
Number of distilleries visited: 4
Amount of whisky bought: just the 2 bottles

Today it was very very miserable when we woke up, but the BBC said that it would get better and we would see sunshine by the end of the day.  We decided that today would be a whisky day - to head towards Aberlour and then do a walk if we could.

Pretty autumn colours 

Thomas Telford Bridge (he got everywhere!)

We got in the car and stopped at the first distillery we came across: Glenfarclas, and had a look around the shop: it had the usual ambiance of wealth, including a bottle on sale for £14,000 for a 1953 vintage.  Matt actually managed to hold himself back here and didn't buy anything.  We then headed pass a number of distilleries (the concentration of distilleries here is higher than anywhere else in the world!) before stopping at Aberlour where Matt bought a litre bottle of Tormore.  By the time we then parked the car in the village centre and looked around in the shops the rain had stopped and there was a distinct prospect of the weather clearing up so we decided to walk along the river Spey to Craigellachie - a pleasant 2.5 mile walk along an old railway line.

Collecting leaves

At Craigellachie we found a hotel which is famous for a bar of 600 different whiskies - so we thought we would stop there for lunch.  The bar was closed, but never mind they had another bar which was serving lunch at reasonable prices and we were all starving so were happy.

After lunch we walked the same way back.  By now the clouds were clearing and we could see blue sky in the distance - yahoo!  The scenery here was very very beautiful, all the trees are multi coloured and we spent the way back finding colourful leaves - collecting many of them.

Blue sky and sunshine over the distillery

As the weather had perked up we decided to head further into the whisky country and ended up at Glenfiddich - the biggest of the distilleries around here and had tea and a bun (yep you've guessed it - another whisky cake).  We then crossed the Spey so we could finish our circuit, stopping off at Cardhu on the way.  This wasn't the most beautiful of the distilleries but the lady in the shop was brilliant.  First of all she opened the shop for us, when it had been closed for an hour, she found Tom a box of lego to play with, meaning we could relax and she could go through all the whiskies with Matt and then she gave Tom some Haribo.  It was definitely the most pleasant shopping experience of them all.

The Glenfiddich deer

We then headed back home for stew and bed.