Not often (never) do we start the day with a pour of whiskey 🥃; after the distillery tour of course.
Glen Moray welcomed us and walked us through the process of making their world famous Scottish whiskey.
We learned the how they use three ingredients: barley, yeast and water to make their magic.
The fermentation and heating and cooling and all of the steps along the way.
It’s time for a wee dram
It’s definitely an acquired taste, one was smooth, the other one with smoked peat was way too strong and woody.
Enough morning drinking, it’s off to the Johnston Wollen Mills.
We had an amazing tour & learned the history of the wool industry from a company that’s been in existence for 250 years. Their wool and finished product is very high end and marketed to royalties, Hermes and other high-end shops.
Each piece was stunning from scarfs to sweaters to blankets to throws.
Sky, our tour guide gave us an amazing experience learning about the process and the painstaking dying and drying and weaving of all the various quality wools all the way to the vicuñas wool from the free range alpacas of Peru.
They are all about process and making sure the sheep are well cared for and the quality was felt at every step.
Off to the next step
Each spool contains 23 miles of wool
They have 4,500 color varieties
My favorite
We went to a few rooms where they do commissioned designs and patterns and were not allowed to take pictures. We ended with a final feel of vicuñas. We thought cashmere was soft. These are never colored always kept to the original wool. To think I passed one of these on the trail to Maccu Picchu 🦙
Quite impressive. Would have been easy to buy a treasure…no room! They never waste anything. Scraps are used for insulation, nice to have cashmere keeping your house warm.
There is a woman from Glasgow who takes scraps and weaves these beauties.
Quite an experience at Johnstons of Elgin if you’re ever in Scotland.
On the grounds were some beautiful old trees, a sequoia to brought from North America a few hundred years ago
Back in the bus for our next visit with Neil the sheep herder. When we walked up the doggies were bringing the sheep in from a far away field.
Then Neil picks the biggest sheep of the flock for shearing time. He lifts this 160 kilo sheep and places his hand over his left eye. The sheep freezes, and the sheering begins.
One of the hard working doggies took a liking to Jeff
Neil tends to 3,500 sheep and has 28 hard working doggies and I got to hold one of these newbies
After a long drive to Loch Rannoch Lodge & Estate we took a look around and our views from our room.
Fill out tummies with Salmon and meet our new favorite bagpiper, the 1st woman in Scotland. Gillie had fabulous stories of her family, her proud heritage, talented family and a lifetime of piping. What a thrill to hear her play
A day full of the Scottish Highlands
