Scotland
 

I am interested in going on the Whiskey trail, and am curious which distillery I should make a trip to first.

Being pedantic and having been married to a Scot you won't go on the whiskey trail in Scotland you reaaly want the whisky trail. Whiskey is Irish.

You will want to re-post on the Europe forum tagged for the UK (and yes, drop the 'e')

Which distillery(s) entirely depends on which part(s) of Scotland you are visiting - it is a big place and there are distilleries all over - not just in the 'Whisky Trail' marketing area . . .

Homework assignment: find a local bar that has a good selection of single malt Scotch whiskies. Try a couple of shots from different regions.

For example, put a Talisker 12 year next to, say, a Balvenie DoubleWood 12 year. You will like one of those a lot more than the other, but only you can tell which one. When you find your region, then go there. Go to a distillery that you've never tried before.

I recognize that drinking lots of Scotch in a bar can be a challenge, but sometimes you just gotta step up to the plate.

<i>which distillery I should make a trip to first. </i>

The one closest to your starting point, of course!

we enjoyed oban on the west coast.

I can honestly say I've never had a whisky I didn't like, just some I like more than others!

It does depend on which you like, though. Personally, I'd be happy to go to Skye and repeatedly take a tour of Talisker, but I also like Edradour which is just behind Pitlochry and totally different.