Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ic connection. I prefer the latter, but in any event Drambuie probably had more right to be
there at the 250th anniversary bash than anybody else.
Come to think of it, I have my own link with Drambuie; that cancelled-order 911 we
had with the orange/terracotta interior had allegedly been ordered by a director of the Dr-
ambuie company (hence the, umm, remarkable colour, maybe).
Aileen, who, I think it would be fair to say, has something of a sweet tooth, set up
a very welcome and mutually beneficial deal with the girls who were serving in the by
now sweltering Drambuie tent; some of our ice cream for some of their liqueur. We chaps
particularly appreciated this as we'd just run out of beer.
Like I say; she'd have made a great agent.
We turn left at the Ben Nevis distillery with its highly photogenic Highland cattle. I can
remember when Highland cattle - also known as hairy coos - were relatively rare sights
unless you were deep in the Highlands or way out in the islands. Now they seem to be
everywhere. Apparently a lot of places keep them just because they look so great - they
are, effectively, pets - and in some cases because they get tourists to stop to take photo-
graphs or video (and so perhaps thereafter take in the attraction that has positioned them
so cunningly). If this is cynical, well, it's a relatively innocuous form of cynicism. And
Highland cattle just do look wonderful.
As a piece of architecture, Ben Nevis distillery is nothing special; a bit overly industri-
al, though the lines are softened by lots of barrels in the grounds. Established by the very
tall 'Long John' MacDonald back in 1825, it was closed for five years in the late nineteen-
eighties before being rescued and reopened by the the Japanese Nikka firm (Japanese
whisky really falls outside the remit of this topic, but I think it's briefly worth making the
point that Japanese whisky can be very good indeed, and that Japanese firms which have
taken over or bought into the Scottish whisky business have generally treated the industry,
the people and the product itself with more respect than a lot of our home-grown entre-
preneurs). Hopefully with an experienced firm like Nikka behind it, Ben Nevis will con-
tinue to flourish and develop; the 10-year-old I bought is a enjoyably big, chewy thing,
like eating a nut-sprinkled chocolate liqueur.
Past the entrance to Inverlochy. The old Inverlochy castle, nearer the town, is that rar-
ity among Scottish castles; a moated one - or in Inverlochy's case a once-moated one,
as the moat is just a shallow depression on the castle's three landward sides, the fourth
facing the river Lochy. Off the top of our heads, as we're taking a look round the impress-
ive but only recently de-scaffolded ruins, Les and I can only think of two other moated
castles in Scotland: Rothesay and Caerlaverock. Old Inverlochy was off-limits because of
safety and remedial work for so long that we'd both kind of forgotten about it, but now
it's open to the public again and it's a large and impressive site; worth seeing.
