Daniel’s friend from New Zealand is visiting us for the weekend again and we wanted to take him to Glenfiddich Distillery for lunch and a tour today. Glenfiddich is the only distillery I’m aware of that lets children accompany adults on tours; however, despite their website and social media accounts and even their answering machine all saying they were open, they were actually closed due to a “Dramathon”, which is some kind of marathon around the distilleries in Dufftown.
I don’t understand why most distilleries ban children from tours because they’re wonderful learning experiences. All high school students learn about distillation in science where it’s usually quite boring but go into a distillery and experience the smells and see the massive copper stills and it all comes to life and begins to make sense.
Just up the road from Glenfiddich is the Macallan distillery which I’ve not visited before. The Macallan visitor centre is unlike any other as it’s very modern in a large cathedral-type structure made from timber and steel that forms an undulating roof covered in turf. It’s quite striking and the large glass windows overlook a very pretty view of rolling hills.
You have to book to go on a tour or eat at the restaurant but you can glimpse through to see stills and giant vats.
The stag statue from the movie Skyfall is on display.
On the estate are some older buildings.
And highland cows.
There are also electric car charging sockets in the car park which was very useful.
On the way home was decided to stop at Strathisla Distillery, the home of Chivas Regal. We last visited here in 2015 with my mother and I tried to recreate a photo in the same spot as last time for comparison. The children have grown so much! Here’s the photo from back in 2015 – as you can see our camera back then wasn’t very good.
And here’s the photo from today. It’s a shame my mother wasn’t here to join us. I think Daniel is definitely taller than her now.
The Strathisla Distillery is so beautiful. I love all the smells at distilleries and the old stone buildings with their interesting architecture. Children can’t go on tours at Strathisla but you can peak through the glass doors and see the stills.
One of the warehouses was open too so we peaked inside.
The tasting room.
We stopped one more time on the way home at Huntly Castle but I couldn’t get the kids out of the car. They just wanted to go back home for Minecraft Live, whatever that is. So I got out of the car for 5 minutes for a jumping shot then we all headed back. But doesn’t Huntly Castle look beautiful in the autumn?
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