THE MANY TASTES OF SCOTLAND
THURSDAY MAY 29, 2025
glenfarclas
A superb guided tour and tasting visit to Speyside’s impressive and scenically-placed Glenfarclas Distillery is essential. , both for the more casual whisky tourist and the most serious of Scottish malt devotees. Appropriately enough, the official company slogan here is “The Spirit of Independence,” and indeed this is one of the very, very few remaining truly independent, family owned and operated whisky distilleries in all of Scotland. Thus Glenfarclas and its products are held in particular high esteem by enthusiasts.
Glenfarclas first fired up its stills back in 1836, and it has been owned and run by one close-knit clan, the Grants of Glenfarclas — who bear no relation to the famous neighboring Grants of the more internationally known Glenfiddich — continuously since 1865. Currently the fifth and sixth generations of the family are very active in the distillery, and they remain justifiably very proud of the company’s unique history and pedigree.
kinrara distillery
This award-winning small-batch gin distiller is located inside Cairngorms National Park. The distillery itself, formerly a milking shed, is named for the surrounding Kinrara Estate, and it produces a substantial lineup of gins, many flavored with locally-sourced botanicals characteristic of the Cairngorms region. The company’s flagship product, Kinrara Scottish Highland Gin, is a typically juniper-forward dry version that also features rosehip and rowan berries gathered throughout the year from the estate grounds. In a nod to the ubiquitous local whisky tradition, there is also a wine barrel aged and finished gin produced here.
Kinrara’s onsite bar offers a wide range of homemade gins as well as beer, cider and wine.al movies and television series, including MGM’s 1952 historical film Ivanhoe, The BBC adaptation of Ivanhoe in 1996, the 2011 first season of Game of Thrones and the historical 2018 action drama Outlaw King. It is best known however as the setting for most of the castle scenes in the 1974 comedy classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail and more currently, it features in the TV hit Outlander as Castle Leoch!
wasted degrees
Set in the village of Blair Atholl near Pitlochry, Wasted Degrees was founded by a pair of local-boy brothers, Conall and Jack Low, in 2016. A true modern-day family operation that started out in the brothers’ garage, it’s also as eco-friendly as possible: the brewhouse uses 100% renewable power; its raw material –from beer ingredients to packaging – is sourced locally; plastic packaging is kept to a minimum and nearly every stage of production is in-house.
The Wasted Degrees beer garden opens only on Saturdays and offers three beers at a time on tap. It is hoped that a new brewhouse will be opened in late 2025.
moulin hotel brewery
Today’s Moulin Hotel, located on the outskirts of Pitlochry, was founded in 1695 (when Moulin was a separate village) as the Moulin Inn. A house brewery was created in 1995, during the height of the microbrewing movement, to celebrate the inn’s 300th anniversary. The brewhouse is located in the old coach house and stables of the former Pitlochry-to-Kirkmichael Coach Service, and it produces three regular beers that are available mainly at the hotel, in the pubs of Pitlochry or at the famous roadside tourist destination House of Bruar.
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