We spend a day getting to know the ‘sense of place’ of the local area around Aberlour in Speyside, looking at how the transition from small scale farming, to sheep grazing and then to whisky making affected the people and the landscapes of this beautiful area.
Itinerary
We’ll drive up to the high moorlands on the Snow Roads and then down through Glenlivet and its beautiful ruined packhorse bridge to the lush Spey valley. On the way we’ll look into a past in which sheep grazing emptied the lands of people and illicit whisky making and smuggling flourished.
We’ll visit the beautifully restored Knockando Wool Mill, with its still working 19th century machinery, and learn about the historic process of tweed production from raw wool to finished product, gaining some insight of how people used the environment around them. (Guided tours run by the mill can be undertaken according to availability).
We continue this theme on our ethnobotany walk as we wander up the wooded river gorge to the Linn Falls at Aberlour, looking at the history and ecology of the glen and how plants found there were used for medicinal and culinary purposes in past times. It is said that a pre-Christian (Druidic) monastery existed on the site of the Aberlour distillery, so it is thrilling to think that many of the plants species we can see today along our walk are the same as those used by the ancient monks for their healing potions.
We round the day off either with a tutored nosing and tasting of four of the most acclaimed expressions at the attractive, pergoda topped Aberlour distillery, or a distillery tour and tasting at the intimate and characterful Cragganmore distillery. We’ll return home via the remote and haunting Cabrach, famed for its whisky smuggling ‘roads’ and lost farms, emptied of their young men by the First World War.
This tour can be combined with The Secret Life of Glenlivet to make it a two day tour. The order of visits may be altered to accommodate fixed tour times at the mill and distilleries.
Visits to: Corgarff Castle (from road); Knockando Wool Mill, Shop and Dyers Garden; the Linn Falls (ethnobotany woodland walk); Aberlour distillery; Aberlour village; the Cabrach.