Aberdeen Trip Day 1 (Glen Gairoch)

Travel

Train: Edinburgh Waverley – Aberdeen (2hr 40min), Bus: Aberdeen Bus Station – Oldmeldrum (1hr 13min)

Itinerary

08:31 – 10:59: Train (ScotRail: Aberdeen): Edinburgh – Aberdeen
12:08 – 13:16: Bus (Stagecoach 35: Elgin): Aberdeen Bus Station – The Square (Oldmeldrum)
13:16 – 13:21: Walk: The Square – Distillery
14:00 – 15:30: Tour: The Founders Tour (Glen Garioch)
15:45 – 16:46: Bus (Stagecoach: Aberdeen): The Square – Aberdeen Bus Station
Hotel: Mercure Caledonian Hotel

Travelling to the Distillery

I headed up north to Aberdeen today to do Glen Garioch, and I was staying overnight so I would be able to travel to Royal Lochnagar tomorrow. I travelled on the 8.30 am train from Edinburgh Waverley to Aberdeen, and it was the InterCity ScotRail train, which was a little nicer than the older trains! I arrived in Aberdeen just before lunchtime and had time to catch a quick bite to eat before I connected onto my bus north to Oldmeldrum. The bus station is just opposite the train station in Aberdeen, so it’s super easy to connect. I got the Stagecoach 35 bus, which goes to Elgin via Oldmeldrum, and I purchased an Aberdeen Commuter DayRider ticket for the trip as this was cheaper than a return for the journey. The trip took just over an hour, and I got off at the Square in Oldmeldrum, and the distillery is a short walk from the town centre. So after I got off the bus, I headed past the public toilets and stayed on the left down Urquhart Road and then onto King St, which goes down into a residential area. That road connects onto distillery road, where the distillery is located, and you see the Glen Garioch sign on the distillery building. At that point, to get to the visitors centre, I turned right and then right again at the small car park.

Facilities

There is a good-sized shop which doubles as a visitor centre/bar area. This building is where you check in for the tour at the distillery.  There is an informal bar with some drink options, including around a dozen drams and non-alcoholic options in hot drinks or soft drinks.  There is a small square table towards the back of the shop where you can sit and enjoy drinks, and there are also more comfortable seats with small tables right at the rear of the shop, which is where I did the tasting at the end of the tour, so the seat availability there might be tour-dependent.

Tour and Tasting

The tour starts outside the visitors centre, and I was doing the founders tour, which ran for 90 minutes and provided a pretty comprehensive overview of the distillery and distillation process. The distillery has been around for over 200 years so quite a lot of history on the site and although it has had a few owners, it is now part of the Suntory global spirits group. The tour was quite informative, and one of the unique aspects of Glen Garioch is that it is one of the few distilleries which does some of its own malting on site. The first room you visit on the tour is the malt room, where apparently, they do 25% of the malting process (the remaining amount is done up in Buckie), and this is apparently significantly higher than other distilleries. The room I visited was one of three malting rooms and it was a shame I was visiting during the silent season as it is always nice to see the malting process (I have seen this at Laphroig in Islay previously).  The tour goes through the entire whisky process and was fairly enjoyable, there was also a section on learning some Doric phrases as that is the historical local dialect, I have to say I am a native Scot and didn’t know most of them (bosie is cuddle for example, apparently!). Another interesting part of the tour was the stills, the pipe leading out from the still goes very sharply downwards, which is something I have not see before and apparently this is done to catch the oils and not let them do back into the still, which makes Glen Garioch a oily whisky

The final part of the tour is naturally the tasting, and on my tour there were three whiskies to sample, which were the 12-year-old, Founders Reserve and 16-year-old. They use bourbon and sherry casks for maturing the whisky, and so you get very sweet and fruity notes coming through on the drams. I found the 12 year old to be OK, but it was a little bit too dry on the finish for me so I think my favourite out of the three was probably the 16 as it was very smooth, quite sweet and had a nice clean finish although it also was the most expensive one! 

Overnight

As I was staying overnight in Aberdeen, I opted for the Mercure Aberdeen Caledonian hotel, which is very central, just off Union Street, around 5 minutes from the bus station. The hotel was pretty dated and could do with some refurbishment. It was also quite noisy (A room fan blocked out some of the noise), but it was only £45 for a single room in July, which I felt was quite a bargain for a city centre room. The staff are pretty friendly, and if I am honest, it was fine for a single night stay on a budget; you get what you pay for. I did have some time to catch a couple of drinks in town, and got a good recommendation for a whisky bar called the Grill (thanks, Iris!). The bar is just off Union Street, it is quite compact and old-fashioned inside, but it has an amazing selection of whisky and was pretty cheap for some drams, the dram of the month was only £3!