Whisky Connosr
Menu
Buy Whisky Online

Discussions

Speyside Distilleries

0 6

@drinix
drinix started a discussion

Hi everybody, my father will turn 60 soon and as a gift for his birthday I'm planning to organize for me and him a trip to Scotland. I would like to visit some distilleries in Speyside (his favorite malts are all Speysiders) and spend a couple of days there. Has any of you ever been to Speyside? Which distilleries would you suggest to visit? Any great place/town to see and to stay at? Any fun activity we could engage in (hiking, etc.)? Is there any website where I can find detailed info on the distillerie's visitor centers and more generally on Speyside? At the moment I was thinking about visiting two of these: Glenfiddich, Glenfarclas, Macallan and Aberlour. Any information will be highly appreciated :). Thanks in advance. Cheers!

12 years ago

6 replies

Sroberts86 replied

Im told if you phone ahead and explain what it is you are planning that Glenfarclas will pull out all the stops. When is it your planning on visiting?

12 years ago 0

@BlueNote
BlueNote replied

A good place to base yourself is Grantown on Spey. There are some excellent B&Bs and it is a great place from which to do a complete Speyside circuit. We stayed at kinross House and Jane, the owner was a wealth of good information and her place was first rate with a great Scottish breakfast included. I think it was 65 pounds a night and less if youy stayed more than one night. Try and get to Macallan and Glenmorangie too, both have great visitor centres.

12 years ago 0

@talexander
talexander replied

@drinix, I attended the Speyside Whisky Festival in May - it was a one-in-a-lifetime trip for me (I live in Toronto). I based myself in Elgin, which was great but @BlueNote is right, Grantown-on-Spey is a better choice. I stayed there one evening at the Garth Hotel, which was very charming and reasonably priced. I visited a number of distilleries, including Macallan and Glenfiddich. They are very different (and both are quite large!). The Macallan has a great visitor centre, so I would say if you could only choose one of those two, pick that one. But Glenfiddich is a great visit as well. Make sure you book ahead and take the premium tours that include the tastings (at Glenfiddich, if you take the Pioneer Tour, you get to bottle your own at the end of it; the bottle I took home was the best Glenfiddich I've ever had!)

12 years ago 0

@cowfish
cowfish replied

I've heard that Balvenie's tour is very good - thebalvenie.com/en-gb/… I think they've stopped doing their premium tour but have made their regular tour pretty much the same. It's also close to Glenfiddich if you want a more commercial tour, and The Whisky Shop Dufftown if you want to buy some interesting whisky.

I'd also go to the Speyside Cooperage - I've still never made it but I've heard that it's really good if you have a more geeky interest in whisky: www.speysidecooperage.co.uk. It's just down the road from the Highlander Inn, which is a rather good place to stop for some lunch and a dram or three: www.whiskyinn.com

If you want to venture a bit further from Speyside then I'd recommend Fiddler's in Drumnadrochit:www.fiddledrum.co.uk. You've got Loch Ness next door and manager Jon has an incredible whisky selection. He also knows where all the good pubs are in the Highlands...

12 years ago 0

@talexander
talexander replied

Yes, I toured Balvenie and it's great - a smaller boutique distillery. I don't know if he still does the tour, but when I took it, it was conducted by the distillery manager (not some random tour guide).

I also have the pleasure of touring the Speyside Cooperage, which was amazing - if you have time, you have to do that as well - very cool!

T

12 years ago 0

@Andrew
Andrew replied

It's been more than five years since I was there but I would rank in order -Glenfarclas (our experience was amaizing, tour by the head stillman and a virtical tasting to the 30 y/o)

  • Balvenie (Nice boutique tour as noted above)

  • Aberlour ( a really good tour and class that gave a pretty good overview of how the different woods affected the whisky, if they still do the class it is almost a must see)

Macallan was good but if I can say this I think they are a bit to full of themselves ..

The Cooperage was a very interesting tour and the Craigellachie hotel was a great place to sleep, eat and drink

12 years ago 0