Speyside Distillery tour Reccomendations

Look at Whisky Magazine. There is a prize for best whisky attraction of the year.

Balvenie

Strathisla Distillery.... nice

I'd second the Balvenie notion (with the added bonus of Kininvie mash tun and washbacks), and add Glenfarclas on the basis that it is about the only place where they'll let you take a picture of a running mill (albeit not a porteus mill). A family run distillery apparently isn't as inflicted with number crunchers as some others.

I did the Founder's Tour at Aberlour and it was great. Not so much focus on the process of whisky making, but time spent talking about the stuff itself and also a tasting with various expressions paired with some excellent hand made chocolate. A chance to try the new make spirit too.

A must do Aberlour . The chance to bottle your own choice of cask sherry or bourbon . Great all round tour .Well worth the cost

Thanks everyone. unfortunately balvenie and macallan don't have any availability. but we are booked onto the Aberlour tour & glenfarclas is definitely on the list. the cardhu "glassic" looks pretty interesting too.

@dansimonds Please let me know how u get on with the Aberlour tour

Update. After a great weekend in Speyside. We took things farely easy. Visited Craggenmore Friday morning nice tour of a small distillery with a couple of drams at the end. Friday afternoon we took a trip up to Glenfarclas, missed the last tour but enjoyed a dram, and came away with a couple of bottles. Then drove over to Cardhu (the distillery was closed to tours due to maintenance) but enjoyed a dram in the shop with a long informative chat with the member of staff there. Saturday morning we took in Glenlivet (free tour + Dram) it's an amazing contrast to see a modern distillery with 14 stills and a modern extension, I came away with a nice bottle single cask. Saturday afternoon was the Aberlour 2 hour tour which was an in depth tour followed by a tutored tasting of 6 different drams and an oppertunity to fill your own bottle from cask of a 16 year old bourbon or sherry filled cask, I chose to get one from the Sherry cask and so did 2 of my friends (6 drams certainly loosens the wallet). We had a great weekend with friends and look forward to returning sometime to visit some more soon.

@Andrea

x2 .. I've been to quite a few and Strathisla was one of the nicest.. the other to look for is Glenfarclas.. but it is apparantly hit and miss since many of the big tour busses stop there and you can get overwhelemed with disinterested tourists.

I've also enjoyed Benromach, It's great at this time of year once the main tourist season is over. I went in with 2 friends, did the tour with Sandy the guide. Then the best bit... We actually must have spent two hours tasting and learning about everything possible.