If it's Not Scottish it's Crap

Knowing we were going to be spending the New Year in Edinburgh, we took advantage of being in Scotland and did a short stop over in Glasgow. The plan was to stop in a city to go to a Scotch whiskey distillery before heading to the big party in Edinburgh. Our father had introduced us to Highland whiskey and we'd become partial to it, so we had originally wanted to go to Islay or somewhere else up North like Inverness. Traveling there, within our schedule, didn't work out so we decided to stop in Glasgow instead and visit a local distillery called Glengoyne.

Royal Warrant worthy. 

Like many whiskey distilleries, Glengoyne uses copper stills in their whiskey making process. While there are different techniques used at Glengoyne, the biggest difference in scotch whiskey is that it is distilled only twice. Irish whiskey is distilled three times. 

The next room we went to was insanely cool. Glengoyne uses a mixture of oak barrels from both Europe and America. In these next few pictures you can see the differences that come out of the different types of wood. Each bottle on the shelf, as it progresses, is the color of the whiskey each additional year it is in the barrel. 

Deep in thought trying to make the best whiskey blend.

This waterfall was the distillery's original source of water for whiskey making. as the brand grew, the stream could not keep up and alternative sources of water were used. 

Before we left, we told our father that we'd bring him back a bottle of scotch for his Christmas present. We had a tough time choosing! 

Glengoyne was a 30 minute cab ride from the Glasgow city center and situated in a valley. The tour we did was amazing; the Malt Master tour. It was a detailed tour of the distillery plus time to create our own 15 Year-Old scotch. Quite the memory. The distillery itself has been in continuous operation since it first opened in 1833. A fun fact? It is known for being the place where modern day scotch whiskey techniques were began.

- Elise