Weekend Whiskey Experience

It's been a little while I think since I have posted a reflection (or at least it feels that way), but I have been super busy!

Just to finish off the record for this weekend's travels so I don't forget:
Sunday I went with the family I am living with to a local whiskey distillery called Glenkinchie. I have never been on a tour of a winery or a brewery or anything like that, so it was interesting (and very potent smelling!). The flavors of Scotland whiskeys are divided into 6 regions: the islands, the highlands, the coastal east highlands, speyside, the coastal west highlands and the lowlands. Glenkinchie is the "heritage" site for lowlands whisky, which is characterized by having a light and fruity taste. It was neat learning about the different regions and how the different tastes developed based on the region. A great deal of flavor development depended on the ingredients they had access to. All of the Glenkinchie ingredients are grown locally, and everything that they can no longer use during the process is donated back into the community (such as feed for animals).

One thing I thought was neat was that they actually use barrels previously used for bourbon. Also learned that Bourbon can only be called so if it is made on US soil. Additionally, I now know that number on the each bottle of whiskey specifies the youngest age of anything in that bottle. For example, if it says the number "12" it means that everything in that bottle of whiskey is 12 years old or more.

 At the end we had two tastings, and they were first given to us straight first and then a few drops of water were added which really changed the scent and the flavor. There were a group of students on the tour, and when I asked I found out they were applied linguistic students who were studying at Oxford. I've gotten a lot braver of just making conversations with random people. So that was my Scottish whiskey tasting experience. We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside, but as you can see from the outside, it is pretty much the same as it has been since the 1800s!


 At the end of the afternoon I was pretty tired. So I took a cup of tea to the summer house and did some reading with one of the cats curled up at my feet. The weather was gorgeous and breezy, so I was happy just to relax. It was another nice weekend!