Whiskey Distillery tour
 

Will be in Scotland next week for 2 weeks. What is the best whiskey distillery tour ? We will have a car.

We were in Scotland in May, toured the Glen Fiddich distillery, and really enjoyed it. We chose it because our guide books said they gave one of the best tours and my husband wanted to get as close to Balvenie scotch as he could.
Enjoy!
Annette

First of all - drop the "e". It is whisky in Scotland, whiskey in Ireland - different things.

MANY Distilleries offer good tours. But they are spread all over the country - in many parts of the mainland and on several islands. Since you are going next week you presumably know what areas you will be in. Where are you going? Then we can tell you which distillery(s) would be best to visit.

Here are a couple of websites showing locations of the distilleries. Maybe you can narrow it down to a few depending on where you'll be and then come back to Fodors for some specific comments.

http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/scotland.html
http://www.webcom.com/tli/whisky/
http://www.welcome-scotland.com/code...AT=35&ST=2

We very much enjoyed the GlenLivet tour - informative and they gave good drams (included their 18 year old -- most distilleries we toured only provide samples of their cheapest single malt). If there's a whisky you particularly enjoy, I would head there.

I've done 5 or 6 in my time. I personally think the best are those which still have mlting floors, becasue you get the whole process (most distillers now buy their malt comemrcially).

But Glenfiddich's is pretty good. They get so many tourists they spend decent money on the experience.

Doing one of the "Distillers" distilleries (it's a company) is good because they let you taste any of the 6 in the group. (Glenfiddich lets you taste Balvenie)

Do you know where you'll be and I'll try to recommend one on your route.

please watch 1) They don't all do tours and
2)they're not all open every day, all year round. Check before you go.

Thanks for your responses. We are starting in Edinburgh for 4 days, then to Stirling, to Falkland Place, to Glamis Castle, to Braemar Castle, to Ullapool/Lockiner, Skye, and Mull. No define plans just going and stopping when we like. We did this last year from London and ended up in Thirsk and Whitby and had a GREAT time.

If you're on Skye, it's worth going to Talisker. It was a good tour, it's a good malt, and it's in a beautiful location.

On your route you have

a) Royal Lochnagar
b) any of the Speyside tours
c) Talisker; and
d) Isle of Mull

Any would be OK to good. Talisker is probably the most acquired taste

Agree w/ the others - Probably with your itinerary, two that make the most sense would be Glenfiddich and Talisker.

Two entirely different whiskys and both offer interesting tours. While at Glenfiddich be sure to also visit Balvenie Castle - it is right next door - practically in the distillery's car park.

It is an interesting smallish castle (and lends it's name to a great whisky)

When in the Orkneys I went to Highland Park which is Scotland's most notherly whisky distillery. The guide book says it is one of the better tours and I enjoyed the tour which was probably 90 minutes. Prefer Laphroaig to drink though (more peat, heather) ...

Another excellent place to visit is the Glenturret Distillery at Crieff, not far from Perth - they have an excellent visitor centre. Details are at:
http://www.famousgrouse.co.uk/experience/