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Our Year of Adventure
Monday morning and the sun was out, not like in a summer's day but in a Scottish winter's day - a bright, clear sky with the odd cloud and cold. We decided to venture out today after our lazy weekend, Maria hadn't seen much of Scotland and there were some places David hadn't been to either.
David's dad drove us to Falkirk, a small town just to the west of Edinburgh, which has something unique in the world. As a millennium project, British Waterways embarked on a piece of work to expand canal accessibility in Scotland. What they did, was to build a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde canal with the Union canal. The wheel raises boats by 24m, but the Union canal is still 11 metres higher than the aqueduct that meets the wheel and boats must pass through a pair of locks to get between the top of the wheel and the Union canal. It is the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the world and you can take a boat ride to go on the wheel... That is if you have better luck than us when it comes to Scottish tourist attractions. Back in March, the last time we were in Scotland, everywhere we went seemed to be closed. No changes this time for us either, the wheel was closed in preparation for some Christmas event.
A little further up the road, we went to see 'The Kelpies'. Kelpies is the Scottish name given to a shape-shifting water spirit inhabiting the lochs and pools of Scotland. It has usually been described appearing as a horse, but it is able to adopt human form. Two 30 metre high steel sculptures of horse's heads have been built by the edge of the canal. It is normally possible to climb up inside one of the heads, but surprise, surprise, not today. They were still pretty impressive though.
We wanted to visit a whisky distillery, but didn't have the time to take a trip to the Highlands and Islands where the vast majority of distilleries are. Fortunately there was one just a short drive outside Edinburgh in the rolling farmland of East Lothian. Glenkinchie is known as the home of Edinburgh Malt.
We arrived just in time for the last distillery tour of the day. John, our guide, took us through the premises explaining the process of making the whisky from start to finish.
The only part of the process that is no longer carried out onsite is the 'Malting' stage. This is where barley is germinated to convert it to malt. Germination is halted by heating it in a kiln using peat as the fuel to add the desired flavour. This stage is carried out offsite now and the malt is delivered to the distillery. The quality of the malt is obviously rigorously tested by the brewery.
We were shown the old kiln and where the grain used to be dried before being shown the grinding machine. The grains are ground into 3 different levels of fineness at a predetermined percentage of each. Whilst this sounds extremely complex, a three 3 layer sieve is used to shake through a sample from the grinding machine and each layer weighed individually - simple stuff!
The ground, malted grain is then mixed with hot water in the mash tun for the 'Mashing' stage. The water takes on the natural sugars from the grain and is run off in liquid form in what's called wort.
The wort is cooled and put into huge fermentation vessels and has yeast added to convert the sugar to alcohol. Glenkinchie had 8 vessels, each at a slightly different stage of the 2-3 day process to complete the 'Fermentation' stage leaving a liquid called wash. We got to look into three of the vessels, the first was only a hours old and smelt terrible, the one midway through smelt better and the final one at the end of the process actually smelt of bananas. Weird.
The wash, which contains about 8-9% ABV, is then put through the 'Distillation' stage. It is put through pot stills twice, but on the second time around only the pure central cut, which is about 65% ABV, is collected.
The clear spirit is then filled into oak casks for the final stage, 'Maturation'. While maturing, the whisky becomes smoother and more flavoursome and draws out its golden colour form the cask. By law, whisky must be matured for a minimum of 3 years, but most single malts will lie in the wooden casks for eight years or more.
The Glenkinchie distillery has approximately five million pounds worth of whisky sitting in barrels maturing.
Having seen round the entire place, we were then taken to the Tasting Room. The standard tour includes a taste of 2 whiskies, one of theirs and one free choice from the bar. David decided to take the Flavour of Scotland option which had 4 tastings. David was happy to be guided by John when it came to selecting the whiskies and in the end tasted 5 ranging from mellow to very smoky and peaty.
They were all really nice, but the one that stuck out the most was Lagavulin from Islay in the Western Isles. David decided to buy a bottle, much to Maria's dismay because she didn't think we had enough space in the backpacks. David had other ideas though and by sharing the bottle with his dad, expected it to be finished before we left for Finland on Sunday.
The distillery wasn't too far away from The Lodge at Carfrae Mill where we called in for a late lunch/early dinner. Maria had haggis knowing that it would be cooked without a deep fat frier and was pleasantly surprised how different it tasted. David went for a traditional Christmas meal with roast turkey and all the trimmings.
Back at the house after dinner, the Lagavulin was opened. What a great dram! Maybe the bottle won't even last until the weekend.
David's dad drove us to Falkirk, a small town just to the west of Edinburgh, which has something unique in the world. As a millennium project, British Waterways embarked on a piece of work to expand canal accessibility in Scotland. What they did, was to build a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde canal with the Union canal. The wheel raises boats by 24m, but the Union canal is still 11 metres higher than the aqueduct that meets the wheel and boats must pass through a pair of locks to get between the top of the wheel and the Union canal. It is the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the world and you can take a boat ride to go on the wheel... That is if you have better luck than us when it comes to Scottish tourist attractions. Back in March, the last time we were in Scotland, everywhere we went seemed to be closed. No changes this time for us either, the wheel was closed in preparation for some Christmas event.
A little further up the road, we went to see 'The Kelpies'. Kelpies is the Scottish name given to a shape-shifting water spirit inhabiting the lochs and pools of Scotland. It has usually been described appearing as a horse, but it is able to adopt human form. Two 30 metre high steel sculptures of horse's heads have been built by the edge of the canal. It is normally possible to climb up inside one of the heads, but surprise, surprise, not today. They were still pretty impressive though.
We wanted to visit a whisky distillery, but didn't have the time to take a trip to the Highlands and Islands where the vast majority of distilleries are. Fortunately there was one just a short drive outside Edinburgh in the rolling farmland of East Lothian. Glenkinchie is known as the home of Edinburgh Malt.
We arrived just in time for the last distillery tour of the day. John, our guide, took us through the premises explaining the process of making the whisky from start to finish.
The only part of the process that is no longer carried out onsite is the 'Malting' stage. This is where barley is germinated to convert it to malt. Germination is halted by heating it in a kiln using peat as the fuel to add the desired flavour. This stage is carried out offsite now and the malt is delivered to the distillery. The quality of the malt is obviously rigorously tested by the brewery.
We were shown the old kiln and where the grain used to be dried before being shown the grinding machine. The grains are ground into 3 different levels of fineness at a predetermined percentage of each. Whilst this sounds extremely complex, a three 3 layer sieve is used to shake through a sample from the grinding machine and each layer weighed individually - simple stuff!
The ground, malted grain is then mixed with hot water in the mash tun for the 'Mashing' stage. The water takes on the natural sugars from the grain and is run off in liquid form in what's called wort.
The wort is cooled and put into huge fermentation vessels and has yeast added to convert the sugar to alcohol. Glenkinchie had 8 vessels, each at a slightly different stage of the 2-3 day process to complete the 'Fermentation' stage leaving a liquid called wash. We got to look into three of the vessels, the first was only a hours old and smelt terrible, the one midway through smelt better and the final one at the end of the process actually smelt of bananas. Weird.
The wash, which contains about 8-9% ABV, is then put through the 'Distillation' stage. It is put through pot stills twice, but on the second time around only the pure central cut, which is about 65% ABV, is collected.
The clear spirit is then filled into oak casks for the final stage, 'Maturation'. While maturing, the whisky becomes smoother and more flavoursome and draws out its golden colour form the cask. By law, whisky must be matured for a minimum of 3 years, but most single malts will lie in the wooden casks for eight years or more.
The Glenkinchie distillery has approximately five million pounds worth of whisky sitting in barrels maturing.
Having seen round the entire place, we were then taken to the Tasting Room. The standard tour includes a taste of 2 whiskies, one of theirs and one free choice from the bar. David decided to take the Flavour of Scotland option which had 4 tastings. David was happy to be guided by John when it came to selecting the whiskies and in the end tasted 5 ranging from mellow to very smoky and peaty.
They were all really nice, but the one that stuck out the most was Lagavulin from Islay in the Western Isles. David decided to buy a bottle, much to Maria's dismay because she didn't think we had enough space in the backpacks. David had other ideas though and by sharing the bottle with his dad, expected it to be finished before we left for Finland on Sunday.
The distillery wasn't too far away from The Lodge at Carfrae Mill where we called in for a late lunch/early dinner. Maria had haggis knowing that it would be cooked without a deep fat frier and was pleasantly surprised how different it tasted. David went for a traditional Christmas meal with roast turkey and all the trimmings.
Back at the house after dinner, the Lagavulin was opened. What a great dram! Maybe the bottle won't even last until the weekend.
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