24 July - Knockando to Dufftown

Since we can't leave a good thing alone, the first thing we did on the 24th was head back to Knockando ... the day before I'd seen a sign on the ground stating that a tour was available at their partner distillery - Cardhu. We stashed our bags in the bushes, and went back four miles to the Knockando distillery to get directions to Cardhu!

We arrived at Cardhu before they opened, as did a batch of other whisky addicts/tourists, and took our tour and free tasting!

In case you're wondering, this is the process for making whisky. Only three ingredients - water, malted barley, and yeast. That's it. Not much to it, right?

After Cardhu we went to the Knockando Wool Mill. A beautiful little mill that has a long history and was recently restored to full working order. They were quiet that morning, and none of the looms were running, so we shopped! Melinda bought a beautiful scarf of the knockando wool mill tartan, and Bob lusted after tweeds and tartans ... and left empty handed. What good is five yards of wool on a cycle tour? At some point we'd like to order yards of their tartan and have kilts made.

Anyway, on we go...

 Here's a picture of a bridge that we passed on our way to Aberlour. We haven't made mention of the bridges much, but will say more in a future post. What we can say at the moment is that they are made to last a long time!! All the bridges are stacked stone, and very stoutly built.  This is a neat one because it's skewed, and is over the old railway.

After arriving at Aberlour (we stopped at the distillery for a tour, but they were booked up for several days! Bummer!) we checked into the caravan camp site. Again, not our prefered way to spend the night, but they had laundry, the price was right, and it was convenient.

The woman running the place recommended we tour to Dufftown, just over the Bluehills to the south. She suggested we take the "footpath" since "lots of cyclists ride it, as well." And she said it was safer than the road, and would take less time. So we did. 

It was HORRIBLE! We were ankle-deep in mud, bashing our way through bushes, and we both wiped out a couple times. We had to push the bikes through the worst of it, and then the flies got us. 

At points the path was overgrown, and Bob took a header in the path shown below. Not so fun! 

Finally we got a good view of Dufftown, and a nice mowed downhill run to bomb our way toward town. 

We came out the other side bloodied and muddied, and went to the Royal Oak for a beer. We had a chat with the owner of the bar, and she actually offered us a place to stay in the back of the pub for the next night - free camping behind a bar!  We took her up on the offer, and headed back to Aberlour. This time we took the road ... and it was only about a twenty minute ride.

By the way, in case you're wondering about the Haggis, here's an explainer from the laundry at the Aberlour Garden's camping site. I'm sure it's entirely factual!

An interesting note about whisky barrels: Scottish Malt Whiskies are most commonly aged in white oak barrels, and they can usually use each barrel three our four times. Each barrel can last 50 - 80 years, depending on how it's used and the standards of the distillery. 

At times, the barrels must be reworked, and there is a huge cooperage in Aberlour to do this work for most of the distilleries. The picture above shows only a small part of the outside yard where barrels are stored. 

Each barrel stores about 250 liters, and Dalwhinnie, for example, produces 1.4 MILLION liters of whisky per year. And if they age their whisky for 12 - 15 years, or more, then ... do the math. And that's for a very small distillery like Dalwhinnie. The giants, like The Glenfiddich, produce five times that much whisky in a year... it's mind boggling to think of the size of the Scottish whisky industry.

Total miles for the day was 23.7. We were happy for a short day, and looking forward to the highland games to come...