Whiskey & Chocolate?

Interesting combination, for sure, but today’s tour of the Dalwhinnie Distillery featured that unusual combination, and I am surprised to tell you that I liked it!

I am not a whiskey drinker, but this particular 15 year aged whiskey was light, with a wee bit of  a vanilla taste, and after placing a small bite of Highland Chocolate into my mouth, followed by a swig of the whiskey, I was amazed at just how good it tasted.

But, to be quite frank, if I need to have chocolate to make the whiskey enjoyable, I’d just as soon just eat the chocolate.  Just sayin.’

But let me back track a bit and tell you a bit about our morning.  We started our day with a lovely breakfast of porridge and fruit while catching up with Isobel, the proprietor, whom we’ve come to really enjoy. (and vica versa).  Then, we headed out on the M90 for the trip to Dalwhinnie.

Marty loves to make the drive with classical music playing on the radio, so that he can relax and enjoy the beautiful surroundings.  Somewhere along our travels, the music stopped, and I had presumed that Marty had decided to turn off the radio.

We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, close to our destination, and concentrating on making sure that Marty made the correct turn when…..suddenly…..the radio began belting out the Hallelujah Chorus from Handle’s Messiah.

Not exactly something we had been expecting, and we both jumped while I asked Marty just what iin the world he was doing!

And, he responded by saying that he hadn't touched anything……the radio must have suddenly found an adequate station for transmission. 

As the Hallelujah’s were echoing through the car, I looked up, and standing in the near distance was our intended destination, the Dalwhinnie Distillery.

 I realized just how ridiculous this whole scenario was….it was like I was living a scene from a Chevy Chase movie when the moment of realization comes, and the movie watcher hears this famous song playing in the background.

We couldn’t have planned this set of events had we tried!  We certainly got quite a laugh out of the whole thing and decided that it must be destiny.

What other explanation could there be?

This particular distillery sits on a high mountain in the Cairngorms, and there is, literally, nothing to be seen for miles……except mountains.  It has stood on that spot since the  late 1800’s and has made Whiskey for most of the years since, save some years during World Wars and destruction from an onsite fire.

The extreme elevation results in a natural source of water from the melting ice that still caps some of the peaks from last winter..

Marty and I signed up for the tour and soon found ourselves among mashing bins and distillation columns, walking through the entire distillation facility and ending up in a warehouse that holds thousands of oak barrels filled with whiskey.

The tour was extremely interesting and I learned that this whiskey contains  only 3 ingredients:  barley, yeast and water.  It goes through a double distillation process to result in an alcohol content of about 56%.  The whiskey is aged, on site, for 15 years in oak barrels, previously used to age brandy in the United States.  Apparently there is some rule that US brandy casks can only be used once.  No worries there…the Scots are more than happy to use them to age their whisky. After 15 years, the end result is a light caramel colored whiskey with about a 43% alcohol content, as, over time, some of the alcohol evaporates out through the casks. 

At the end of the tour, we received a sample of the finished product, along with a melt-in-your-mouth piece of a special Highland chocolate. 

And I am now the owner of a beautiful glass, etched with the distillery’s name.

But, more importantly, I now have to my name a Whiskey Passport.  

I'll bet that you never saw that happening!  We were encouraged to sign up for this whiskey rewards program which offers free tours and tasting at most of the local distilleries.  

In my book, you just can't beat free. And, since I'm not really big on tasting Whiskey, this works out great for me, because I can still go on the tour with Marty (who wants to visit a couple of others in the area as they all have their unique flavor) and not worry about wasting the money.

Having completed the tour and tasting, we once again headed out on the windy road to Kingussie. (pronounced Ken  goose ee).  

Just on the outskirts is the Highland Folk Museum, an open air museum which holds original structures from as far back as the early 1700's.  When these treasures are located, the trust painstakingly moves them to the museum and reconstructs them in the original form.

There are several volunteers dressed in period who gave excellent presentations of what life would have been like in those days.  As you can well imagine, the interior is quite dark, with no windows to offer any light.  A fire was burning in the middle, and the smoke would make its way out through the thatch, thereby no windows.  Not only did 15 people live in one of these things, but their animals had their own special area inside as well!  

In addition to the early village, there were shops on display from the  mid 1930's for viewing.  One that I found particularly cute was this tailor's shop.  The building dates from 1895, but it is set up as it would have been in 1935.  I loved it. 

One point to make is that this area is known for its production of tweed.   The shop across the road from the Tailor featured all kinds of colors of tweed patterns on display.  

There was a lot to see, and we didn't actually get to see all of it.  But, it had been a free admittance and the weather was getting cold and rainy, so we didn't feel the least built guilty hopping in the car and heading to our B&B, the Arden House in Kengussie.

 Lovely place. Equally lovely hosts.

Upon checking in, after some delightful conversation, we were offered a dram of whiskey or sherry as a welcome.   And we both took them up on the offer.

Why not?