Jura

When the sun shines on Jura it outshines any shimmering jewel. From mountain top to seashore. From the smooth white of the Paps of Jura to the turquoise and blue where they run their toes into the placid Sound of Jura. The east coast of the island on a sunny day in winter or summer, or any time in between, resembles the Mediterranean. And yes, there are palm trees at Craighouse too. Follow the road north as it narrows and narrows again, very few venture this far. Quiet save the sea and the burns and the birds and the odd sheep. Stop and listen and you can almost hear silence, that is real peace and quiet. And the glorious whisky maturing in its barrels just down the road is given 5 or 10 or 20 or more years in which to absorb and concentrate every morsel of this. Breathtaking views to right and left, continue on and then on by foot and you will reach the Gulf of Corryvreckan with its tidal race and whirlpools. George Orwell dwelt on the island during the 1940s and visited those racy pools, his work celebrated by the Isle of Jura Distillery with its version of 1984. As you return from Jura to Islay, and as the ferry burls you across the Sound of Islay, keep your feet and enjoy the setting of the Caol Ila Distillery sheltering in-by the Islay shore.

Arran

Scotland in miniature, with surround sounds from sea and firth; the Sounds of Bute and Kilbrannan, and the Firth of Clyde. Across the Clyde by ferry from mainland to Brodick and Arran. Perhaps cross the Kilbrannan Sound to Claonaig at the head of the Kintyre Peninsular, continue on down to Campbeltown, or over to Islay and on to Jura, or up to Oban and over to Mull: a Whisky Barrel junction on the Whisky Barrel Highway.
From the tip of domineering Goat Fell with majestic Golden Eagles soaring yet higher, to singing seals along the shoreline. There, there is mountain and moor land and there, there are to be found all the requirements for the production of a malt whisky, a gentle malt whisky. The winds and the water, lochs and peat, plump Scottish barley, plump Oak barrels, over the water and in by the pier. Having opened in 1995, the distillery is now proudly yet quietly maturing its very own whisky up on the north west of the island. The last distillery on the island closed in 1837 and so this new malt whisky is the first, legally, in over 170 years. Deserving of a place on our Whisky Barrel Highway, you must go sample this new malt on the block.

Mull

Every shade of the purest sapphire, from the palest of pale turquoise to the deepest of dark ink, be it salty sea or pure and fresh. Open sea, open sea lochs, lochs enclosed and lochs elevated. All water. All sky. All those fabulous shades. Wide-horned cattle paddling amongst those shades, lost in the ginger background of the ginger seaweed, heather on the high lands, the heather growing the peat. Rocky outcrops and sharp spiky stacks all around the bends. No motorway, no trunk roads, but lots and lots of island pace. Boat trips for Fingals Cave and Iona and oysters on Ulva. Chocolates and whisky chocolates and malt whisky in the capital, cheddar cheese to hand. It’s a capital island, on the Islands Highway. Capital eagles, sea eagles, stars of the big TV screen the other year. And capital whales if you take the time. Anchored by Iona, with peace in its abbey attached to its crosses all sitting on marble, uplifting over time. That’s sure to uplift the anchored-island’s spirits. Founded way back in 1798 but closed far more often than open, Tobermory Distillery was most recently revived in 1990. An old kid on the block, or a chip off the block? The only one on the island. It is the next step, and the link, along the Islands Highway.

Skye

Taxes. Like sheep; like sheep chewing the landscape to death, over the centuries. Taxes, taxes and more taxes, over centuries. Landlord powers, landowner governments, over the centuries too. Tax on malt, tax on distilling = no more legal distilling ≡ illicit distilling; no more illicit distilling ≡ more legal distilling = tax on distilling. And round and round she goes, and over the sea to Skye. Tax on the ferry, toll on the bridge. And over the sea to mainland, and tax on the ferry, toll on the bridge. All the while the battles over taxes. Wearing and isolating the inhabitants. Power and control. Toll on the bridge, over the sea to Skye, but not any more! This is the twenty first century and it’s free to cross the bridge to Skye right now. Go over the sea and see the monstrous Cullin Hills, and in their awe, visit Loch Harport and its capital Carbost, and its capital distillery Talasker. A distillery so distant from its markets, battered by ocean, enveloped in mist and northern spray. Yet gleaming in the sunlight since 1830, and there, the rash, there is a connection after all! Its in the calendars and on the coffee tables, its a powerful connection and a global connection. A connection over time and a connection over space. A popular connection? The people’s connection? Like the Old Man of Stour and his companions, like their roots and their memories and there, there’s connections in black and white, the Island Highway.

Orkney

The Stones

The sky and the air, the seas and the oceans, the lochs and the burns, the soils, and the rocks for construction. The water, the peat, the bare and the barley all on the islands. Enclosed in a single, domed canvas of sky, its very rim compressing the horizon to reveal a yet bigger canvas. What is within? Long summer days and short summer nights. Sunrises and sunsets, the biggest and best, ever and anywhere. All viewed from within Maes Howe, or through the Rings and around their stones, for a goodly millennia or three. And its not hairy cows amidst the sun and seaweed, rather its hairy sheep walled to the shore eating the ginger-weed, amidst the sunshine out-circled on North Ronaldsay. Flyways not highways to school and back the same day.

On the Edge

There were six but now just two. The town of Stromness was a recruiting centre for the Hudson Bay Co. and east coast based whaling ships; it was their last port as they set the sails on their wooden ships, heading for Canada and the Arctic Circle. There was a well to provision freshwater and a distillery to provision spirits, but time has changed all that; there was a distillery in Stromness. Although the future of Scapa Distillery was in doubt when the pigeons moved in, a recent multimillion pound refurbished has set it up again. And there, that rash again, there on its seaside wall, in black and white, that’s Islay to Skye to Orkney now. And so Highland Park’s the big survivor, the most northerly distillery in Scotland, on an island, on the edge. But not on a backwater, Orkney is thriving with all the facilities for visitors thronging from around the globe, around the calendar. Tall ships and cruise liners and ferries and airliners. Ancient and modern side by side, the Howes and the Stones Standing in great Circles, the circular old farm kilns at the end of low crofts. Now there’s Hoxa Tapestry and Yellowbird Gallery and Sheila Fleet Jewellery and Photographic Insights and Highland Park, all leaders in excellence on this exhilarating edge. On the Whisky Barrel Highway.