4 October 2006

October

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Wednesday 4 October 2006--Wake up cranky this morning, full of gloom. Decide I must go take the tour at Bladnoch right away and get a dram in me. I just miss the 10:00 tour, so walk around the small but pretty village, taking pictures. At 11:00, I get a one-on-one tour, which is usually okay, but I am still groggy. If there is anything special to be got out of this tour, I am not the man to do it.

At the end, I am taken into the hospitality room and shown five bottles–fifteen-year-olds at 40%, 46%, and cask strength (55%); a rum-cask finish at 56%; and Aiken’s Dram, a vatting of six highly evaporated casks, 46%. All are unchillfiltered, and the 40% is as cloudy as a weissbier. I figure I’ll start with the 46%. The guide pours my dram, puts all of the bottles away, and leaves me alone in the room. Robbed! I take my time with my dram and then buy 20cl bottles of the cask- strength and the rum finish, and a 35cl of the Aiken’s Dram. I will use them as roadies, and take the empties home–they will be useful sample bottles.

After, I drive to the Mull of Galloway and promptly take a nap in the car park. Then I walk out past the lighthouse and gaze at the Isle of Man, invisible in the mist last year. Puffy little clouds scud by like a vast armada on a sea of sky.

Up the western side of the Mull, I pass through the village of Port Logan. A sign outside the Port Logan Hotel indicates that Timothy Taylor's Landlord is being served inside, and I cannot resist a pint. It's a nice little pub.

On the way back to Isle of Whithorn, I have a look at some minor antiquities–a hillfort, some weathered cup-and-ring marked stones, a couple of standing stones. The latter are at Drumtroddan, in a cow pasture--one of the hazards of visiting these sites is that the cows think you've come to feed them. They are docile, but they are big.

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