Easter Monday ride to Glenkinchie Distillery « CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum

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Easter Monday ride to Glenkinchie Distillery

(65 posts)

Started 11 years ago by Wilmington's Cow
Latest reply from chdot

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Uberuce
Member

My GPS declared the distance to be 54 miles, around four of which is just getting to and from PY.

Like Anth said, many foodstuffs gobbled in the Tweeddale Arms in Gifford. Pretty good value and decent pub grub, although the place itself looks a little tired. It did have a friendly dog though, which redeems it a fair bit.

I'd not been to a distillery tour before, so it was all new and shiny for me. It's been a while since I was in a building with such extremes of temperature. I wouldn't have minded if the guide had spoken a little quicker in the utterly Baltic warehouse, nor taken his time a little more in the stills room.

Posted 11 years ago #
chdot
Admin

"disappeared from view"

Yeah think we missed where you turned off.

Could see cyclists in distance one with a top that appeared to be Anth's.

After a while got close enough to realise it wasn't!

Went back a variation on route out.

All good.

Slightly tired...

Posted 11 years ago #
Wilmington's Cow
Member

The sun DID come out!

Sunny by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr

Sadly the only real wildlife was deceased by the side of the road :(

Dead Otter by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr

Bruce found he has a greeting card doppleganger....

Bruce Card by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr

Whisky perusal

Perusing by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr

And the Distiller's Edition, which I took home

Bottled by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr

(not pics allowed inside the actual distillery :( )

Posted 11 years ago #
ARobComp
Member

Solid day out chaps. I had a lovely time. Knees feel ok which means that perhaps I've finally got my cleats in the right position. 47 minutes home from the distillery (to be fair it was downwind and some downhill!)

Lovely day out!

Posted 11 years ago #
chdot
Admin

The Carradice Twins

Posted 11 years ago #
Wilmington's Cow
Member

And that's why I don't often wear those troos....

My gps came in at 51.7 - living o the east side gave me the lead with a longer run to the start, but all lost by not returning to the city centre. Mind you, I'd planned on a 40 mile ride!

Posted 11 years ago #
LaidBack
Member

Tweedale Arms... shot here taken on our Quetzal expedition last year.

Note step for mounting horse and flag mount - also handy for hanging any wrongdoers. The Inn is collie friendly as Bruce said..

Tweedale hotel by LaidBackBikes, on Flickr

Saddling up earlier on (apart from the LB non-comformists).

Peter's Yard / Glenkinchie Trip by LaidBackBikes, on Flickr

Gosford Bothy lunchstop with velomobile in the way.

Near Aberlady / Gosford Bothy cafe by LaidBackBikes, on Flickr

Posted 11 years ago #
chdot
Admin

IMG_1630.JPG

Posted 11 years ago #
Wilmington's Cow
Member

Seemed like the right way to round off the day....

Glenkinchie by blackpuddinonnabike, on Flickr

Posted 11 years ago #
Claggy Cog
Member

Splendid day out. Many thanks. Fifty miles for me. chdot and I followed the road round to the right, when you went straight on to Bolton, and ended up in W Saltoun. You have yoof on your side, and set a fairly blistering pace, well too fast for me and were out of sight although we were catching up, or so we thought!! Well we did manage to catch the other two, that were not you.

@WC now I hope you have added a pippet full of water to that, to release the oils!

Posted 11 years ago #
Focus
Member

Glad you all enjoyed yourselves. I contented myself with a 23 mile ride to Bonnyrigg and back, when I finally managed to escape the house. No whisky though!

Posted 11 years ago #
MeepMeep
Member

I was supposed to have a grand date with Mr MeepMeep and the panda bears at the zoo yesterday. Alas when we arrived shortly before lunchtime all the panda tickets had gone so we turned heel and went promptly back home. Gutted - I could well have come with you all.

Posted 11 years ago #
Morningsider
Member

A great day out, made even better by Claggy Cog's assertion that we had "yoof on your side" - I have obviously underestimated the grey hair hiding properties of a bike helmet!

Posted 11 years ago #
kaputnik
Moderator

I've been on quite a few distillery tours now, but still enjoyed this one as there are still* new things to learn and still* variations in the basic process to observe.

For those not on the tour, Glenkinchie has the largest pot still in the UK, taking some 29,000-odd litres of wort if my memory serves me correctly. They also distill 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year and some 90% of their output of spirit ends up in blends. If you don't want to shell out for a bottle of their single malt, you can find it in Johnnie Walker or Bells blends.

The guide was quite open about the fact that it's really only the fermentation and distillation part of the process that goes on at Glenkinchie and all of the malting and most of the ageing and all of the bottling takes place off-site.

The smells of the mash room and still room are worth the £7 of the tour alone (which if you take off the cost of the whisky probably sets you back £2.50)

* hurr-hurr

Posted 11 years ago #
steveo
Member

The last couple of distilleries I've visited all said they out sourced the malting as it cheaper and as a side effect less environmentally damaging due to reduced amount of peat consumed per tonne of malt.

Posted 11 years ago #
kaputnik
Moderator

@steveo no peat goes anywhere near any Glenkinchie malt. Iain was very clear about this. Although it is malted up the road in Ormiston, so it's not like it's not a local process, it just doesn't have the quaintness of the traditional malt floor with men in bare feet turning it with malt shovels.

Posted 11 years ago #
DaveC
Member

We visited the distillery at Lochranza a few years ago. I recall looking on with muffled mirth when they rolled out their prestigious 7yrs old malt. I'm happy to say that was quite a few years ago and I'm sure they have some older whiskys now.

Posted 11 years ago #
Wilmington's Cow
Member

The Abhain Dearg (Ah-van Jerrack) distillery on Lewis is the first legal distillery in the Outer Hebrides for something like 200 years - I think it was last year they were first able to call the spirit whisky (3 years old). It was actually quite nice, but very light on flavour as you might expect. Their first bottling was limited to 2012 bottles (to coincide with the year y'see) and sell for something like £150 a piece.

That's a collector whisky for the rarity of the distillery more than anything else. I'm hoping when I'm back this year that they've done another bottling, but I think they're now holding off till it's a little older - they've got a large grant from the Scottish government recently, so will be interesting to see what changes they have planned.

Smallest bonded warehouse in the world too.

Posted 11 years ago #
kaputnik
Moderator

Other highlight of the tour was the substantial piece of bright red industrial equipment with "BOTTOM SCREW" stenchiled on it in large letters.

Posted 11 years ago #
steveo
Member

no peat goes anywhere near any Glenkinchie malt.

That explains why I'm not such a great fan. To be fair these were highlands/speyside distillers who like a bit of peat, though not as much as the islay boys.

What do they use, just a big electric oven?

Posted 11 years ago #
ARobComp
Member

Yep - Literally a big electric oven. That was one of the things that had "bottom screw" on it.

Posted 11 years ago #
kaputnik
Moderator

though not as much as the islay boys

I think some of them go so far as to burn the inside of the barrels with peat before adding the spirit. It also helps that the ambient atmosphere of Islay is 5 parts air, 2 parts rain and 3 parts peat reek.

Posted 11 years ago #
PS
Member

I may be imagining this, but I think the water they use at Ardbeg comes from Loch Uigeadail further up the hill, which is no doubt brown with peat...

Their Uigeadail "expression" (a marketingspeak as hateful as "colourway" in my book) is very very good.

Posted 11 years ago #
Wilmington's Cow
Member

Glenkinchie has four 'expressions'...

Apparently peat in the water (so I was told on the Talisker tour) does nothing to the taste - the peat taste comes from the malt being smoked through by burning peat (or, as kaputnik mentioned, peating the barrels). I always thought it was that the water was peaty.

Posted 11 years ago #
PS
Member

@WC Yeah, I think I've read that. TBH, I'm surprised there's much flavour left in there at all by the time it's been distilled the requisite number of times...

Posted 11 years ago #
Nelly
Member

The distilled spirit usually looks like moonshine until it goes in the barrels.

Some whisky is coloured with caramel.

Posted 11 years ago #
chdot
Admin

All a bit smoke and myths really...

Posted 11 years ago #
LaidBack
Member

Had a bottle of Ardbeg once. Had a 'tarry boat' aroma to it! Made Laphroaig seem bland.

Posted 11 years ago #
ARobComp
Member

Anyone got a GPX route for the ride out to the distillary and back via mostly the offroad path network? I can't really remember a lot of the bits we did. Belles on bikes are interested in trying it.

Posted 9 years ago #
chdot
Admin

If it's the same trip I was on the 'roadies' didn't go off road much 'cos Pencaitland Path was muddy.

Starting where?

Posted 9 years ago #