The Famous Grousse

We had a jam packed day today. First, we were to head to the Famous Grouse to sample some Scottish whiskey, then it was off to Glasgow to explore, if we decided not to visit Glasgow once we arrived, it was off to Culzean Castle. This didn’t happen though, as we never made it passed the Famous Grouse distillery. While we were getting our things together to visit the distillery we realized we were blocking access to a car (A lady and her baby). We promptly apologized and got out of their way then made our way to the distillery for a tour. It turned out that they had a deal on, The Malt whiskey tour for the price of a lesser tour. Naturally I said yes but the lady explained to us that we arrived just after the tour left and would have to wait 1 hour or we could tag onto the tour that had just started. We decided to tag onto the tour that had just started so we didn’t have a chance to get an explanation of what “The Malt Whiskey” tour entailed. During the tour a young lady approached Julie and I, asking if we were Canadians. Julie’s watch strap has a Canadian flag on it and it was this that she had spotted. We ended up chatting with her for the remainder of the tour (when it permitted). The basic tour includes a sample of the Famous Grouse whiskey. They had a scratch and sniff card to help you find the smells in the scotch. Oh, we were also told that the Grouse’s name is Gilbert, after the local team rugby ball. We parted ways with our new friend here, as she was on the basic tour. The Malt whiskey tour includes a video on all the brands of whiskey made by the company and an odd, incomplete, explanation on the “Grouse’s” animation for the video. From here we were escorted to the café where we would sample 4 other scotch’s. There were two that we liked but the only one we remember was Highland Park, as it was our favourite of the two. This was a nice Scotch that is made in the Orkney Islands (we were told that it was a nice scotch from the tour bus driver but didn’t get a chance to sample it at the time). The seven of us sat at the table and had the chance to sample the whiskey at our leisure. Julie and I don’t do so well with that, and managed to have them all down in minutes. I was a little buzzed and decided to have a bite to eat and wait before driving anywhere further. During our tasting, the young lady came up to us and asked if we could give her a ride back to her hostel (she had walked to the distillery and it wasn’t a short or pleasant walk). Of course we said yes and when we were done our small lunch, we took off for her nearby hostel. During our lunch we realized none of us had introduced ourselves (we tend to do this a lot and sometimes end up never learning the names of people we talk to), so we rectified that and quickly got acquainted. Karen’s hostel was only a few km down the road and she invited us to hang out for a bit, and possibly see if we could park the van overnight at the hostel. The people that owned and ran Comrie Croft Hostel had no problems at all with us staying overnight in the parking lot and told us to make ourselves at home. That decided our night. We ended up hanging out inside the lovely hostel and talking with Karen (Toronto), Mel (from London, England) and a German family (from Stuttgart, Germany. Who were in fact the family that were parked next to us when we got to the distillery). Completely random, but Julie and I had a great time. The next morning we talked with Karen a bit more before heading off for Culzean Castle. Karen had told us that Glasgow is a lot like Toronto and well worth the visit. Unfortunately, we ended up skipping it as it didn’t seem to have anything that really interested us. Julie did suggest to me that we visit Glasgow if it means we find a bottle of Tobermory for my Dad. We have been trying to find this particular whiskey for some time with no luck. We passed the Tobermory distillery before we learned it was the scotch to bring home.