Scotland 2015 Day 6: Pitlochry, The Old Course, and Fish in St. Andrews
Scottish Breakfast again to start the day in the hotel before getting on the bus for a day trip to the Pitlochry area.
We headed up into Perthshire, a bit south of where we were earlier in the week. As expected, lots of sheep and glorious scenery along the way!
We got to Blair Castle first and had a nice tour, seeing some old gun racks and antlers, a crazy narwhal tusk handrail?! Seems a tad extravagant, no?! I particularly liked the China room as they had some really cool tea sets :)
At one point in the tour there was a "Kids costume try-on" area, and a funny older German man was trying on the costumes gleefully. As you most certainly should expect from us, we happily joined in on the fun, too.
After the tour, we had a mincemeat tart and tea, and then unfortunately the tour plans changed and we skipped stopping in Pitlochry. I was sad about that because it seemed like such a fun little town to stop in (Edradour Distillery is there, amongst other cute craft shops). We headed right to the pub for lunch to make up some time on the tour. I had fish and potatoes and got a Blair Athol Whisky. And a nice light custard for dessert on some rhubarb... amazing!
From there we went to Bell's Distillery... turns out this is Blair Athol Distillery! I thought we might be going to Glenturret, but this was great too. We pulled into Blair Athol Distillery and immediately as we were getting out of the bus, it started raining! Oh, UK. :) We wandered through the distillery with a short tour, it was not in operation today but it was cool to see as usual. They only make one Whisky, the Blair Athol 12. It is used in wide variety in many Blended Whiskies. Older casks are use in Johnnie Walker Blue Label. It seemed to be a Diageo Distillery given the standaed example of other Diageos... "like a Dalwhinnie or a Talisker...", and they had the Friends of Classic Malts in the gift shop.
I had a taste of the 12 Yr old and it was quite nice, and sherried. I almost bought it, but I wanted to keep room for all the stuff I'm going to get along the way :) After a nice short tour and a bit of a wander, we got back on the bus and headed back to St. Andrews via the town of Cupar, which looked SUPER nice. I would totally stay there, there was some sort of Carnie Fruit Farm and Mega Maze! Sounds epic.
We then headed out for dinner, but first to wander "The Old Course", the famous golf course in St. Andrews. It was beautiful weather, again, and the sun was shining and we were psyched to get some nice views of the course. The course is also a public park, strangely, so you can literally just walk right out onto the course.
Then off to the aptly named "The Seafood Restaurant" which was well-reviewed. It was a swanky place on the shore and had a nice prixfixe menu. The fish was EPIC. Absolutely amazing.... buttery... mmm. The whisky menu was pretty solid too, I tried the AnCnoc finally (the regular one, I think the 12?) it was very smooth and I really enjoyed it. Tried the Edradour there and it was only OK.
After a great dinner on the shore, we headed back to Fairmont St. Andrews and I stopped by the whisky bar again to finish off that Glenmorangie 25 ;)
In the room waiting for us was an Arran oak-smoked cheese!!!! Oh man!!!!! Incredible. What a lovely trip to Scotland. We packed and then prepped for an early departure the next morning to London. Scotland is so amazing.
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