The 4th England is expensive (4) ... Distillery tour and aristocratic mansion

Third day

Glen Ord and Darwiny.

Distillery tours are quite difficult for amateurs.
The process of making whiskey is relatively simple.
Barley is cooked with peat, mixed with yeast, distilled in a kettle, and the liquid that comes out is packed in a barrel. Simply put, it looks like this.
This process is slightly different depending on the distillery, but an amateur like me can't tell the difference.
Why the taste is different due to the difference in distillation method and barrel ... It takes some basic study and practice to study the problem of distillation.

After a short tour and tasting, the fun is at the souvenir shop.

There were souvenir shops in both Glen Ord and Darweeney.
I really wanted to buy whiskey at both distilleries, but when I asked Mr. Yamauchi, Japanese mass retailers were cheaper.
So I buy glasses and polo shirts for souvenirs. The price is 6,000 yen for a polo shirt with a logo.
As it is a Pringle product, the quality is good and cheaper than in Japan.
At Glen Ord, I bought a set of mini decanters and mini glasses as a souvenir for my favorite bar.
This is about 5,000 yen. It's a cute set.

I really wanted it myself.

I bought two whiskeys after all.
Limited edition of Talisker. It's rare, but it's very likely that you have a Japanese bar.
The rest is Teaninich for myself. I have never said it before.
It's quite delicious. However, to tell the truth, if you have this much whiskey, you can get better ones cheaply in Tokyo.
Japan is blessed with a lot of items that are cheaper than the home, but it is a problem that there are no souvenirs even if you go to the home.

Lunch at a local hotel called Boat Hotel during the day.

Ask for grilled salmon. This was good.
Compared to London, the price is reasonable, with a full course of around 3,000 yen.
However, for local people, eating at such a hotel is only a special occasion.
When I go to the Scottish countryside, I have no place to eat out, so I'm in trouble.
There is no family restaurant and no convenience store like Japan.
It's inconvenient, but don't you think the local people are inconvenient?

How do people live?

I wanted to ask about my profession and lifestyle.
Like me, I like the big city of Tokyo, smoke cigars at the bar every night, and sometimes go to London to see the hotel or go to the bar.

People who find it fun can't live in the Scottish countryside.
However, there is a cozy house, a quiet and beautiful nature, and a "life" that is different from the exciting life I think of.
Playing in the city is exciting but somehow empty. I think a quiet life can face oneself better.
While thinking about that, I was vaguely gazing at the scenery reflected in the car window.
The world opposite to the Japanese city. I arrived at the inn on the evening.

Drummuir Castle, a guesthouse of a former aristocratic mansion.

It was great here. It is an aristocratic mansion.
With armor and portraits, it's the same as you see in a movie.
Ghosts are likely to come out. Speaking of ghosts, Edinburgh is the city with the most ghosts in the world.
It seems that the grudges are swirling because the city was created by repeating the murders.
I want to see you once.

Drummuir Castle is a guesthouse, so you can drink whiskey as much as you want.

The best whiskeys produced by Scotland are still on the shelves.
Rare things are also casually placed. Time goes by without knowing what to drink from.
As a result of my worries, I choose soft Cragganmore before meals. I went to see the distillery, so I have to drink it.
What I felt more vivid than usual when I drank it was the work of this museum.
I have to eat supper because I drank an aperitif. I eat too much, so I can skip one meal. Lamb steak is the main course for dinner.

I don't usually like to eat rum, but the rum here is soft and lighter than beef, and it was just right for the overeating stomach.

After eating, move to LIBRARY and drink.

LIBRARY is a library, but it seems to be a room for entertaining guests, not just a room for reading.
My visit to England was so short that I only got a glimpse of some of the British customs.
We should do more preliminary research and stay in the field to investigate. However, I can imagine a little from one end.
The Lanesborough bar was LIBRARY and even in Kregerahi it was common to drink in the reading room.

Perhaps the aristocrats invited male guests to the reading room.

There are hundreds of whiskeys in this reading room, and you can drink anything because you are invited.
All-you-can-suck cigars.

I drank the rare blended whiskey Buchanan.
Unlike a single malt, it didn't have a strong personality, but it was a wonderful whiskey with a strong balance and elegance.
Nowadays, such blended whiskey is hard to find.
The cigar is Cohiba's Robust. This was good. Excellent compatibility.
Both are elegant yet powerful and brilliant.
I feel that blended whiskey is easier to match with cigars than single malt. I want the finest blended whiskey.
The Excalibur I drank before was a soft, mellow, mellow scent that went well with the Oyo de Monterrey double corona.

Well, my room in this Drummuir Castle is big.

There are two large single beds in the bedroom. One reception set.
Then a chaise longue (what is it, a sofa bed?
I think there was a specific expression in French), but one was a small desk, where I wanted to sway a cigar, but the bedroom was non-smoking.
The size is about the same as a junior suite in Japan. The bathroom is also large. The bathtub is likely to drown if you pour hot water with clawfoot.
All bath products are Floris. Attentive. As expected, it is an aristocratic mansion.
The shaving supplies here are also one of my favorite items. I will talk a little about this when purchasing shaving supplies separately.
After getting drunk with high-quality sake and high-quality cigars, return to the room and put Floris's elegant scented bath bubbles in a spacious bathtub and pour hot water.
Take a bubble bath and close your eyes. After taking a comfortable bath, wrap up in a bathrobe and lie down on a chaise longue.

It's paradise late at night.

The 5th UK is expensive (5) ... Interview at a distillery

4th day

I didn't drink much the night before, so I decided to have an aperitif the next morning.

There is still time until breakfast at 7 o'clock.

At 6am, drink Royal Lochnagar's Selected Reserve. It's a soft, elegant and gorgeous whiskey.
Great for aperitif. Or rather, it can be done after or during meals.
Drinking whiskey before breakfast is rare. Self-degradation.
I drank another bottle of BRORA, a bottler called Rare Malt Series, which was discontinued, but I refrained from doing so because it was before breakfast.
I've seen it at "Bar ON" in Ginza, so I'd like to drink it as soon as I return to Japan.

Breakfast is buffet style.

The oatmeal was excellent.
It looks like porridge, so I feel like I ate rice for the first time in a while.
I sprinkled a lot of milk and ate a lot.

After leaving the building, I headed to the Cragganmore Distillery.

The purpose is to visit the distillery and interview the blender.
The Cragganmore Distillery felt nostalgic.
Probably because I visited there two days ago and I was drinking only Cragganmore.
You will be guided to the reception room.
Whiskey-related items were placed in the old-fashioned reception room, and I could feel the weight of history one by one.
There was a rare bottle, but the contents were empty, unfortunately.

Tour the distillery.

It was almost the same as other distilleries (it would be completely different from a professional's point of view), but the distillery here is characteristic and the other distilleries are swan necks.

While it literally has the shape of a swan's neck, the upper part of the kettle is not a smooth shape but a T-shape.
It is a distillery kettle devised by the founder of the distillery through trial and error.
However, an amateur like me does not know how the difference in the shape of the kettle affects the taste and aroma.
We interviewed Old Parr Classic 18-year-old blender Morin Robinson at this distillery.
This is a magazine interview, so I will omit it.
It's nice to be able to drink a commercial product before it goes on sale.
There is a reason for the delicate frequency of 46 degrees. You'll understand if you drink it.

After finishing the interview, I headed from Aberdeen to London.

(Note) I've written a lot about whiskey, but I go to the bar almost every night and do various single malts.

Drinking brandy, I'm a little more enthusiastic than the average person.
I don't think the terms that are commonly used by bar and cigar buddies, such as bottlers and current ones, are generally unfamiliar.
In the future, I would like to add explanations of terms little by little.
However, I'm an amateur drinker, so I often don't understand.
I would like to find out with my acquaintance's bartenders and books.
In whiskey, there are many comics and essays that plainly write wrong knowledge.
I want to describe it as accurately as possible.

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