Where there's a still there's a Spey
The Speyside Festival was both a blur of activity and a civilised and leisurely jaunt through the heart of the whisky world. Dominic Roskrow reports
Over the years, there have been many occasions where Iâve looked around me and asked âhow on earth did I get here?â
Admittedly, most of them have involved alcohol, strange floors and couches, and in one highly unmemorable case, the toilet compartment of a high speed train from Leeds to London.
But the most recent case of this phenomenon occurred on a sunny Sunday morning in Speyside, and while it would be a lie to suggest alcohol wasnât directly involved (I was in Speyside, for heavenâs sake!), I hadnât had a drink for at least 10 hours when I glanced through the window
of the car I was travelling in, across the streams and rolling fields, and questioned the journey that had brought me to such a good place.
It would be easy to write that it doesnât get much better than a sunny morning on Speyside, but in actual fact it does. If youâre accompanied by a Filipino whoâs not quite sure which side of the road to drive, or the person in the back is a Swede who does a great line in cocktails and an even better line in world anecdotes, or your CD system is pumping out ambient jazz, then the whole experience just cranks up another notch.
So while Iâm marvelling at life in general, and asking myself how I got to be in such a sublime place with such sublime people, on this occasion I was actually able to answer the question.
For while I never actually planned to be driving up to Glen Grant Distillery, I had meandered through the 48 hours in beehive fashion; with .....
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By Dominic Roskrow
Section : Speyside
Page number : 22
