Scotland and Northern Ireland 2017, Part fourteen…

Monday morning, I awoke with a full-fledged cold. I was coughing, hacking, and had woken up several times during the night to blow my nose and drink some water. I was legitimately sick (and still am, though I’m getting better). We had plans to visit a distillery on the beautiful island of Islay. Bill and I visited Islay on our last Hebridean cruise and had the chance to visit a couple of whisky distilleries, Laphroaig and Kilchoman. This time, we were supposed to visit Bowmore, but that was cancelled before we boarded the ship. Then it got switched to Lagavulin, but since we didn’t do our itinerary as planned, that tour, too, was cancelled.

Islay happens to be rich with whisky distilleries, so the folks at Hebridean fixed us up with a tour at Bruichladdich, an old distillery that makes both whisky and gin. Before we got on Islay’s schoolbus for a trip out to Port Charlotte, we had time to walk around. Bill and I went to a tiny grocery store and bought some cough medicine and candy for me. I’ve been sipping Covonia Chesty Cold formula ever since Monday. I don’t know if it works like NyQuil, but it’s got booze in it and tastes like Jaegermeister.

With that taken care of, we were ready for our trip to the distillery. Thanks to our whisky tour last year, Bill and I are very well versed as to how scotch is made. I was pretty happy our guide did not take us through the process, but rather told us the distillery’s history and showed us the equipment. The tour was short, sweet, and ended with some rather generous whisky tastings. Bill and I left with a bottle of scotch, a bottle of gin, a wool throw for me, a music CD by Islay native Angela Paterson, who performed on our last cruise, and some soap.

We got back on the ship in the early afternoon, just in time for lunch, a ham buffet. The captain would be taking us closer to Oban during the day.

A beautiful morning in Port Ellen.

I got a kick out of the sign… it’s perfect if you like your whisky.

A shot of Hebridean Princess in port.

Distillery time!

And the distillery shop, where I parted with some cash.

We were invited to try the barley. I did, knowing that it wouldn’t make me sick like the wort did last time we did a distillery tour.

Mash!

Those vats were full of some very alcoholic brew…

The gin still, which the distillery picked up when another distillery was closing.

The spirit safe.

We visited the warehouse. Lots of scotches in different barrels, everything from bourbon to sherry casks.

Bill enjoys a taste. They were quite willing to let people try different whiskys. We were told if there was one we wanted to try under 200 GBP, they would oblige. I think the distillery was rewarded, because I witnessed one passenger spending over 500 GBP on whisky.

Down the hatch!

Moody skies for the drive back to Port Ellen.

The beautiful ham.

Lots of salads and pasta.

And more seafood… including oysters, shrimp, smoked salmon and trout, and the like…

I had a crab salad as a starter.

Bill had a sundae for dessert.

I had warm rice pudding with raspberry jam. It was very satisfying… took me back to my childhood days in England.

After lunch, I was feeling a little under the weather, so I went back to our stateroom, packed my bags, and took a nap. Two hours later, Bill woke me up to tell me to get ready for dinner. I was tempted to go back to sleep. Then he showed me a picture of dolphins he managed to get. It’s not the best picture, but it’s still cool.

Too bad I was sleeping when this happened.

Monday night was the evening of our second gala. I broke out my blue sequined gown, which rained shiny sparkles all over the place. In retrospect, it was a little fancier than I usually go for. The one thing the dress had going for it was that it was floor length, so I didn’t have to wear control top panty hose. I wore knee highs instead, and pinned the top of the slit so my cheating wouldn’t show. I felt a little silly at first in my sparkly gown, but eventually relaxed. It’s not like I haven’t seen worse at any Army ball (sorry, it’s the truth). And besides, Bill was there in his blues.

David Indge mingles with guests at the Captain’s Farewell Gala.

I was absolutely enchanted by the sunset in Castle Bay, so I had to go take pictures while Bill explained to another passenger that the Pentagon really was hit by a jet airliner on September 11, 2001. I always defer to Bill when it comes to 9/11 because he was actually in the Pentagon that day.

David addresses everyone and introduces our captain, Trevor Bailey.

More gorgeous sunset pics. I could look at these all day.

Bill is smiling because he doesn’t have to wear that jacket anymore!

Prepped for haggis. They bring out the whisky beforehand.

Haggis! This ceremony is a treat! I got a good view this time, but my camera died and I had to switch to an iPhone.

I happened to be sitting under this bell, so I got to ring it a couple of times. I think I almost went deaf the second time.

Haggis! I couldn’t really taste it due to my sickness. I have had it enough times to know it wasn’t a bad thing not to taste it, although haggis is not as horrible as it sounds.

Because I didn’t like the liver starter, our kind waiter, Mariusz, brought me smoked salmon.

Bill bravely tried the liver. I don’t think it was a hit; we had some in Germany that actually tasted like chocolate of all things.

A nice palate cleansing sorbet.

I had turbot filet, which is a favorite.

Bill had venison, which he loves…

Then we had creme brulee and a biscotti for dessert.

Our one selfie together. Maybe I should have gotten someone to take our picture, but I don’t photograph very well, especially when I’m sick.

One more shot of my dashing Bill in his blues…

And Toby was kind enough to make me a Brandy Alexander. It was fabulous.

Goodbye, folks…

The castle in Castle Bay.

A few more spectacular pictures!

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Part 9… Sunday morning at Kilchoman Distillery…

I mentioned in a previous post that Bill and I aren’t church people. But we sure felt the spirit on Sunday morning, March 20th, when we visited Kilchoman Distillery on Islay. After a hearty breakfast at the Columba restaurant, many intrepid whisky enthusiasts clambered off the Hebridean Princess and back on the old schoolbus with the busted seatbelts and boogers for a trip for one of Scotland’s newest distilleries. The drive to Kilchoman was breathtakingly beautiful as we passed many fields of grazing sheep, lightning fast hares, wandering partridges, and majestic herds of deer.

We were originally scheduled to visit the Bowmore Distillery, but for some reason, that plan was changed in favor of Kilchoman. I am mostly glad we went there. I say mostly because I suspect that I picked up a nasty stomach bug at the Kilchoman Distillery. I will explain more about that later. For now, I will just say that I forgot my education at this lovely place as a very friendly staffer hopped on our bus near the distillery and guided us in.

The Kilchoman Distillery was founded in 2005. It was the first distillery to be built on Islay in 124 years. It is one of six Scottish distilleries still doing floor maltings (and I guess we must have seen two of the others during our cruise) and is unique in that all steps of the whisky making process are done on Islay. Our guide, Leha, explained that the owners had just purchased the adjacent farm, giving them plenty of room to grow their own barley and feed whatever’s leftover from the whisky making process to the farm’s own livestock.

More barley malting…

Another kiln…

We were a little delayed waiting for people to use the restroom, which wasn’t such a good thing. The staff at the distillery had made fresh scones for us. One group enjoyed the scones while the rest of us toured the facility. We were supposed to flip flop, but ran short of time. I managed to grab a scone to go, anyway.

Spirit safe.

Here’s where things get a bit sketchy, though. At one point, Leha pulled a metal tubelike container out of one of the tanks. It was full of wort. She passed it around and invited people to try it. Though I had tried the wort at Laphroaig (whose staffers were kind enough to put it in little plastic communion cups for us), Leha simply passed the metal tube around. And I was dumb enough to try it. I think this is where I ended up picking up the stomach bug that made things go so awry on the last day. I don’t know for certain, but my guess is that I am not the only one who paid for that mistake.

I’m mostly pretty good about hygiene, especially on cruise ships. I wash my hands and use the alcohol cleansers, although those are not effective against Norovirus. I usually only share glasses with Bill. But I forgot myself while I was on this distillery tour and I think that’s what caused me to get so sick; not coming from the UK, I was not used to the bug that invaded my body so quickly. It didn’t even have to be someone from our cruise that spread the germ. Norovirus can survive a long time without a host. I hasten to add, I don’t even know that I definitely had Norovirus, but I sure had all the symptoms of it. And based on how long it took for me to get sick, then Bill, I have a feeling I got it at Kilchoman and then spread it to him and perhaps a few other unlucky people.

I thought the bottling machine was pretty cool. Also, I was surprisingly interested in how they came to choose their distinctive bottles.

Apparently, it’s hard to break those suckers, even when you drop them.

Sample time. Besides whisky, Kilchoman makes a liqueur that I immediately dubbed a “lady’s drink”.

It is possible that I got sick on the ship or somewhere else, but remembering what I did during the cruise, I really think I got the bug when I tasted the wort at Kilchoman. It takes a minute amount of the virus to infect someone and that seems like the most obvious time it would have happened.

But just because I got a stomach bug, that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the tour and Kilchoman’s products immensely. In fact, Bill was very excited to pick up a bottle of Kilchoman to take home with us. It may be awhile before I want to drink any whisky, but I bet he’ll be opening it soon. And, if anyone from Kilchoman reads this, I loved visiting your facility. I just hope you’ll follow Laphroaig’s lead and provide little individual cups for people who want to taste the wort. And, I also hope I learned my lesson in hygiene. Fat lot of good that master’s degree in public health did me! The wort isn’t even that tasty, though on the bright side, at least my immune system got some practice.

Unfortunately, we were a bit rushed out of Kilchoman. We had to get back to the ship because we were headed for the Jura Distillery that afternoon. Jura is another island. But, at least until I started hurling a couple of days later, I had a glowing impression of Kilchoman and my experience there taught me to remember not to drink from communal containers.

Bill’s butternut squash soup.

More seafood for me…

I had a smoked salmon sandwich.

Bill had Irish stew.

Rice pudding for Bill.

Ice cream for me. I was blissfully oblivious about what was coming.

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Part 8… Finally, a new island for us! Islay!

There are many distilleries on Islay, so it makes sense that our next stop on our whisky cruise would be on Islay. However, because we were coming from Kintyre, we had some distance to travel before it would be time for another distillery tour. We spent Saturday morning cruising past Northern Ireland on the way to our next stop, the Laphroaig Distillery. Laphroaig is a well-known whisky and when I posted that we were headed there, I got a few likes from friends, as well as a spelling lesson. It’s not so easy to spell Laphroaig properly, you know.

Bill and I took the opportunity to enjoy some local-ish beers offered on the ship, as well as try a gin that was new to us called Isle of Harris. I had to point this out to an old friend of mine from Virginia whose last name happens to be Harris. After lunch, we anchored in Port Ellen. I was excited because I had heard about Islay, but had never actually been there. Iain, the hottie hotel manager, came from Islay and told us where he grew up. Apparently, everyone on that island knows each other. This was later confirmed to me when Bill and I were in England and happened to run into an Englishman with ties to Islay. He said he went there once, mentioned his family name to a bartender, and the bartender called up his relatives and they later showed up at the bar to drink with him.

We were loaded up on a truly *shocking* bus. It appeared to be a school bus with a big sign at the front demanding that everyone wear seatbelts. However, all of the seatbelts appeared to be badly damaged. I noticed the upholstery on the seats was torn and poorly repaired with duct tape. Then I noticed food stains and dried boogers smeared on the seatbacks. Apparently, we were using a schoolbus! Never mind, it got the job done. Some of the cruisers weren’t interested in the whisky distillery, so they went to see Kildalton Cross and walk around Port Ellen. The rest of us went to taste more whisky.

More barley malting… Laphroaig has much of theirs trucked in.

Peat, which gives Laphoaig its distinctive flavor…

And another kiln…

The Laphroaig Distillery has an interesting history which I read about on the display boards in the visitor’s center. Our group was divided into two groups. I am sad to say that I don’t remember our tour guide’s name, but he was a very knowledgeable and entertaining chap. He had been told that we knew about the whisky making process, so he simply showed us around the distillery and allowed us to taste the wort. A wort is basically the same stuff one uses to make beer. In fact, all whisky starts out as beer before it turns into spirits.

The Duke and Duchess…

Stainless steel tanks as opposed to the oak ones we saw at many other distilleries…

The spirit safe.

Like Springbank, Laphroaig was in the middle of malting barley. Once again, we were shown how it’s done, though it appeared to me that Laphroaig has a slightly more sophisticated system all the way around. I noticed a couple of shots of Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla on the walls, indicating that they had paid a visit. Also, a lone stag passed us as we walked through the distillery.

After we toured the distillery, we visited Kildalton Cross, where I managed to take some really beautiful photos of Islays’ stark and haunting landscape. Bill commented to me that he’d like to find a self-catering cottage on Islay and just hang out there for a week. I’d be up for that myself. It really is a beautiful place and there are plenty of other distilleries there that we didn’t see, namely Bowmore and Ardbeg. We were supposed to see the Bowmore Distillery, but that was replaced at the last minute.

I like to buy music when I take trips, so instead of buying whisky, I purchased a couple of new CDs from Laphroaig’s gift shop. I have now listened to both of them twice and really enjoy them, though I had never heard of the performers before I bought their music. That night turned out to be pretty musical anyway, since Angela Paterson and her violin playing friend Fiona showed up to perform for the passengers after we’d had dinner. Bill and I only stayed for about a half an hour. That’s not a reflection on the quality of their playing. I thought the ladies were very talented and I would have liked to have stayed longer. However, Bill was nodding off and I was pretty tired myself. I usually spend a lot of time by myself, so it can be taxing to spend the whole day around people.

I heard that after an hour or so, people started dancing to the music. I wish I could have seen and/or participated in that. I did, however, take away some inspiration from the musicians who played after we visited Port Ellen…