March 30, 2017. A day at whisky distilleries!

LOCATION:  House-sitting outside of Cupar, Kingdom of Fife, Scotland

WEATHER:  Cloudy.  Occasional rain.  Highs in 50s

 

As with yesterday, today's weather forecast was not too pleasant, so we planned a day at a distillery.  We decided to go to the one that our homeowner likes, with the plan to buy him a bottle.   The distillery is in a really pretty town about 40 minutes away.  It is beyond Fife.  It was interesting how the scenery changed.   Farmland turned into mountains and forests.  There were lots of beautiful rivers with fishermen in waders trying to snag a trout.  

The distillery was established in 1798.  About 5% of its production becomes single malt.  The rest goes into different blends, mostly Bell's.  

The air reeked of whisky.  (Yes - whisky, not whiskey, as it is spelled here).  Our tour guide had us turn off all our phones, iPads etc due to a risk of fire in such an alchohol-fume area.  

Our tour guide was excellent.  We were with a bunch of Chinese.  One could speak English so translated everything the tour guide said.  The best part of the tour, of course, was the wee dram tasting afterwards.  

The town is full of huge mansions, many of which are now hotels or B&Bs.  

We had taken the express route to get to this area, but the tour information office gave us an alternate route to return home that is the more scenic route.

 

It was indeed more scenic, but took us more than 2 hours!  As we were driving along in the middle of nowhere, out of the blue appears Dewars Distillery!

We were too late for a tour but tasted both their blend and a single malt.....just a wee wee bit as we didn't pay for a tour.  Enough to get an idea of their tastes.  Mr. Dewar must have been quite the quipper.  The sign on the door above says..."The only thing you get in a hurry is trouble".  Good one.  And the one below is so true....

The scenery around the distillery is very pretty, including a river that runs through it, providing the water source for the whisky.

We must have spotted 25 male pheasants as we drove along. They are so beautiful.

 

DINNER:  Tortellini in pasta sauce.     After dinner, we watched a very old BBC show on the ipad called "To the Manor Born" in honor of all the beautiful old mansions we saw today.