Balvenie and beyond....

After the tasting at Balvenie, we needed to fuel up....or rather soak up some of the wondrous alcohol that was now in our systems (well, it was in mine since I has some of Gin's, some of Annette's and some of Jeff's samples.  It made no sense to let it go to waste).  We drove into Dufftown and stopped for lunch at The Stuart Arms.  I can't tell you what I had to eat, but I know it was tasty.  I do remember that I did support The Walking Wounded....a program to help injured Scottish soldiers....by partaking in a dram of 15-year old Glenfiddich.

a "dipping dog"....an example of what we 

used to pull our samples from the Balvenie casks

Jeff and Annette

Monkey Shoulder

High end whisky selection at The Stewart Arms

After lunch, it was time to head back to Ballater, but before we did we were going to add a stamp to our Classic Malt Passport and stop for a quick visit to the Craggenmore distillery.  We drove in circles for a while trying to find this place (and we never DID find it).  We did find the Cardhu distillery (by accident) and did a quick tasting there.

On the way to Cardhu Distillery

Art....I guess.

Pagoda on the Malting Kiln

After Cardhu, we were making our way back to Ballater and we missed out turn.  This misstep led us into Tomintoul, and in Tomintoul is The Whisky Castle.  This little shop has over 500 different whiskies, with many independent and private bottlings (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnrKtoQvCkg).  It's a great place to visit, and the small shop next door had Tomintoul Whisky Ice Cream....yum!!

The Whisky Castle in Tomintoul

So MANY choices.....

Black Adder Independent Bottles....

Thor - by Highland Park

I will be back someday....

Another Highland Coo that we came across....he liked having his ears scratched.  Sort of.

A little further up the road, we drove by Corgarth Castle/Tower House and drove over Cock Bridge.  Yes....I said Cock Bridge....cock-a-doodle-doo?

Corgarth Castle

It's probably childish, but this just makes me giggle.

A little further up the road and almost back to Ballater was a stone arch bridge (The Bridge of Gairn) and a field full of sheep....probably weresheep.  I might be crazy, but I saw a movie a while back and up in Scotland there were some experiments being done....DNA testing.....cloning.....and things went wrong.  "Things" were created.....unholy things.....the movie was called Black Sheep.  Check out the trailer here....and beware - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0779982/

The Bridge of Gairn

Field of sheep.....weresheep.

Up and over

Weresheep.  Just look at the hatred in his eyes.

Tomorrow is another day, and we'll be spending it hanging around town and hopefully going for a bit of a hike if the weather cooperates.  Until then.....TTFN (ta ta for now).