What is your favorite Scotch Whisky?

[Turnip]

Campbeltown Goodness

 

[Smurgeon]

macallan 18

 

[twsreynolds]

Having visited a number of areas famous for their whisky, Laphroaig is the one that most purely reflects where it’s from and provides a window back there: Islay is a uniquely wonderful place.

 

[belfastboy]

Having visited a number of areas famous for their whisky, Laphroaig is the one that most purely reflects where it’s from and provides a window back there: Islay is a uniquely wonderful place.

My wife and I visited Scotland for 5 weeks back in March & April. The trip was expressly about whisky. 30 distilleries, over 200 whiskies sampled. Not a one we did not love. All were great. A highlight was the week we spent on Islay. Visited them all except for Bruichladdeh....it was just down the road from our cottage and we visited it 4 times. It was before the hoards hit for the whisky fests so in most places we had the bar/visitors centre to ourselves and the barkeeps had time to answer our questions and chat about whisky.

 

[twsreynolds]

My wife and I visited Scotland for 5 weeks back in March & April. The trip was expressly about whisky. 30 distilleries, over 200 whiskies sampled. Not a one we did not love. All were great. A highlight was the week we spent on Islay. Visited them all except for Bruichladdeh....it was just down the road from our cottage and we visited it 4 times. It was before the hoards hit for the whisky fests so in most places we had the bar/visitors centre to ourselves and the barkeeps had time to answer our questions and chat about whisky.

Blimey that sounds like one hell of a trip! Any other spots you particularly liked? The only other place I’ve been in Scotland for the whisky is Speyside which I didn’t love as much, the place itself wasn’t Scottish enough for me haha

 

[belfastboy]

Blimey that sounds like one hell of a trip! Any other spots you particularly liked? The only other place I’ve been in Scotland for the whisky is Speyside which I didn’t love as much, the place itself wasn’t Scottish enough for me haha

We stayed in Aberlour for a week using it as a base to explore the Speyside. Islay was more relaxed in that they would serve whisky if you were driving, in the Speyside it was a no go. But it was still just mid April and it was so very quiet in Speyside. All the distilleries were quiet and had time to talk whisky. After Aberlour, we stayed in Aberfeldy for 3 days and perhaps the visit to Dewars/Aberfeldy was the distillery highlight of the entire trip. We skipped the tour, went straight to the bar and had such a wonderful time talking to the barkeep. He ended up giving us about $350 worth of free drams including a very expensive dram of the 40 year old. We staggered out of there but it was fine as our hotel was just a mile walk down the road.

I can't think of one distillery visit we did not enjoy. Probably the least was Caol Ila as it was a Sunday and very busy. It was so very corporate compared to the others but then it is the home of Johnnie Walker. Not sure if we will go back to Scotland as we have visited for a total of 12 weeks in two visits. We have visited every distillery on our list. There are a few we would go back to but not sure that warrants another trip to Scotland. Next we want to revisit Kentucky and the Bourbon Trail, we only dipped our toes in and want to do a deeper dive.