Our next stop on the Scotland tour was the Dalwhinne Distillery as we headed into North Scotland, on the outskirts of Speyside – the famed Scotch region. I had to ask, what is the difference between Scotch and Whiskey?

To be called Scotch whisky the spirit must conform to the standards of the Scotch Whisky Order of 1990 (UK),^[1] which clarified the Scotch Whisky Act of 1988,^[2] and mandates that the spirit:

1. Must be distilled at a Scottish distillery from water and malted barley, to which only other whole grains may be added, have been processed at that distillery into a mash, converted to a fermentable substrate only by endogenous enzyme systems, and fermented only by the addition of yeast,
2. Must be distilled to an alcoholic strength of less than 94.8%^[3] by volume so that it retains the flavour of the raw materials used in its production,
3. Must be matured in Scotland in oak casks for no less than three years and a day,
4. Must not contain any added substance other than water and caramel colouring, and
5. May not be bottled at less than 40% alcohol by volume.

This definition is currently under review and new legislation is expected in the spring of 2008.^[4]

Personally, I can’t stand scotch, which is a bit of a travesty as many I know enjoy a great scotch. It goes back to an incident in University which involved a 60 oz. bottle of Crown Royal, 3 days without sleep due to cramming for finals, caffeine tablets and my engineer neighbour who had just graduated. It was not pretty. If I even smell Whiskey I get hit by waves of nausea.

A few interesting tidbits:

• Turns out that tax is about 75% and if you were to fly to South Africa, you could actually buy their Scotch at about half the price.
• The Angel’s Share is the amount of Scotch lost due to evaporation during the aging process (Up to 1/3)

The distillery itself is out in the middle of nowhere. In the town there is this odd little restaurant. Odd because it is a fully organic restaurant during the day (amazing choice of food) and the local disco at night serving up techno DJ mixed enjoyment for the locals (offering buses too and from 3 different towns).

As an aside, while driving through the hinterland of Scotland to get to this place we had the wits scared out of us by a low flying fighter jet which was ducking and weaving along the highway a couple hundred feet up trailing smoke. To me it looked like a Tornado. Cool but VERY loud.