One Whisky, One Beer

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Trip Start Jun 14, 2009 Previous
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  Dufftown, Scotland, United Kingdom
Thursday, June 25, 2009

So today is our wedding anniversary, so most of my thoughts were consumed by missing my husband horribly.
Anyway, we had breakfast at Ardno House and hit the road. Our destination was Dufftown in Speyside (whisky capital of Scotland) but we also stopped in Loch Ness. This is not somewhere I planned to go. I typically try to avoid tourist traps, but Jodi was just so excited about it, so off we went. Besides, it wasn't really off our path anyway. We also stopped at Urqhart Castle. So lame! Not the castle, the way it is operated. They have strategically placed visitor centers, trees, large bushes, you name it so that you can't even take a picture of it without paying the 5 pounds for the tour. So we left. Loch Ness was pretty silly, not surprisingly. We took our pictures with Nessie and off we went.
We arrived fairly early in Dufftown, so we walked around a bit. We tracked down some wooly coos and got some closeups. And we went to Glen Fiddich! I was really excited about this one. A friend had told me about Monkey Shoulder. I got the chance to try it in Edinburgh and then finally understood why he was so insane about it. Its awesome! Its smooth and tastes of honey; not your typical put hair on your chest and make you breath fire kind of scotch. Which by the way, don't call it Scotch in Scotland, they look at you funny. Also, its whisky NOT whiskey. Everybody up to speed? Ok good. The tour at the distillery was pretty cool. I learned more about the whisky process than I probably ever needed to. But we did get some whisky at the end of the tour. They also make a whisky liquer that even Jodi liked. It is pretty delicious! It is begging to be paired with some gooey dessert. Now back to monkey shoulder. I bought two bottles at the gift shop. The other night I had done a pretty basic search about getting it delivered to the us at some point. If you go to the monkey shoulder website, they say they can't ship it. But then I found a place called The Whisky Shop and I put in my country and all that jazz and it went through. So the moral of the story is, do you research kids! The distillery can't ship to the US because of duty/customs issues but the whisky store can.
After our distillery tour we went and got settled in at Fernbank. Karen, the owner is hilarious! She is so funny! We had some tea with her and chatted for a while. Then we headed down to Dufftown city centre and walked around. We grabbed a beer and a really weird bar. Super tiny, but they had McEwans. And I had my 2nd scottish delicacy that I had promised myself I would try. And honestly, my stomach was happier with the haggis than the battered mars. That's right, a deep fried candy bar. Only in the UK. I only ate a couple of bites. Jodi ate most of it! But I tried it and thats what is important.
Tomorrow is going to be a transit nightmare: drive to Glasgow to drop off the car, bus/train from Glasgow to Stranrear and ferry to Belfast, taxi to hotel. Dreading it already. Stupid stupid plan.

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Nessie	Nessie and Jodi   Comments!	Whoa Nessie	Wooly Coos up close   Comments!
Baby Coo	Castle Balvenie in Dufftown	Glenfiddich!   Comments!	Copper still   Comments!
the whisky process   Comments!	That's a lot of whisky! Let me at it!	Glenfiddich 21   Comments!	I'm stuck!   Comments!
Cuppa=cup of tea	Battered Mars Bar   Comments!	Jodi likes it!

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