Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and then - after we got past the shallows where we were pushing ourselves along with
the flats of our hands on the gravel as much as actually paddling - floating and paddling
down river to Stirling over the next three days.
It should have been two days but I needed a day off in the middle because my
shoulders and arms were so sore (my Uncle Bob expressed genuine surprise we didn't
paddle upstream. Different generation; two of my aunts swam across the Forth just up-
stream from the Forth Bridge. There had been some publicity - even at slack water, swim-
ming the Forth here is no joke and it didn't happen very often - and when Aunt Jean
got to the far side and saw there were lots of people and even a few reporters waiting on
the slipway at South Queensferry for her and Aunt Bet, she just turned around and swam
back again. Like I say; different generation).
Loch Lomond distillery is a bit of a shocker if you're expecting a wee farm-like gem
set amongst the heather with a breezy view over the sparkling loch. It's a factory on an in-
dustrial estate. It used to be a calico dye works, so it too is a conversion job. They don't do
tours but next door there's the Antartex Village shopping complex, a slightly rough-look-
ing converted factory with garish red external walls and god-awful piped music of ex-
treme Heederum-Hawderum-ness that's patently been dredged from the very lowest, most
crud-encrusted sump of the great festering bilge tank that is Scottish Cliché MacMusic
from Bonnie Glen Grotesquo.
This drivel even extends to the car park so there really is no escape. I have a walk
round, watch some skins being prepared to make leather jackets, stop off at the café for a
cup of tea and a scone, walk round some more, find the Whisky Shop - a good selection,
and I buy quite a few bottles - and, as I pay, realise that although I've only been in here
30 minutes, I swear this is the second time I've had to suffer 'Oh Ye Canny Shove Yer
Granny Aff A Bus'. I ask the assistant how he stands this music all day. He just smiles
and asks, What music?
Loch Lomond - another so-called Highland distillery, though only by the skin of its
aluminium cladding - is a bit of a multi-tasker; it's set up so that it can produce quite
different expressions according to which of its different stills are used. There's Loch
Lomond itself, plus Inchmurrin and Old Rhosdhu and, potentially, several others. There's
another distillery not far away on the banks of the Clyde near Erskine called Littlemill
(correctly a Lowland) which is owned by the same company. This has just started pro-
duction again after nearly ten years mothballed, and the same people own Glen Scotia in
Campbeltown, so the Loch Lomond Distillery Company could end up with quite a selec-
tion.
Loch Lomond Pure Malt (no age statement on the bottle I bought) is surprisingly sea-
weedy. It's a light, leafy Lowlander like the Deanston, with some sweetness in there too,
