Glasgow and Glengoyne

This weekend, Kim, Matt and I went with the ISC (International Student Center) to Glasgow and Glengoyne. Glasgow is another city in Scotland, much larger than Edinburgh. When we were going, I asked Joanna and Vijay how big it was.

It's a big city.
Is it like New York?

They cracked up. "It's like a EUROPEAN big city!" Basically, you can tell that it's bigger and more modern than Edinburgh, but it's still fairly small. Smaller than London, even. But it was busier than Edinburgh, for sure.

Anyway, an hour bus ride brought us to Glengoyne Distillery, where Glengoyne scotch whiskey is made. And oh my goodness, is that place neat! First of all, it smelled divine, like baking bread and honey. Really that's the smell of fermentation. We all go to taste a dram (wee bit) of their signature 10-year old single malt whiskey, which smelled so delicious but really burned going down. We watched a video on how the type of water (what rocks it comes from, if it's hard or soft, etc) and type of barley all add into the special taste of the spirit. Even the shape and size of the stills ends up affecting the taste!

Then, we took a tour, seeing the natural waterfall which fuels the heating, cooling, fermenting, etc of the whiskey. We got to see the fermentation process, where each barrel holds 19 thousand litres of "weak beer" (or something that looks like porridge and bubbles at the top). At the end, we saw the gift shop. Matt bought a tiny bottle of 21-year old single malt (all Glengoyne makes is single malt) and Kim bought a glass.

We learned that:

• single malt whiskey is "the best" but mixed whiskeys, like Johnny Walker, just mean that multiple single malts go into them
• "Scotch" is just whiskey made, distilled, and bottled in Scotland
• "single cask" whiskeys are the MOST rare; they are stored in a cask for its first use and therefore take on most of the flavor of the wood
• 3 years and 1 day of storing time makes the spirit legal whiskey, not a day shorter.
• A 36 year whiskey is about 400 lbs to buy a bottle of. Older whiskeys are VERY RARE because so much evaporates over time.
• Single cask 36 year whiskey is probably the best there is
• The color of the spirit comes from the aging process

After the distillery, we went to Glasgow. There, Jake and his friend Sonny met us and we all walked about looking for lunch. We walked down Buchannan Street, which is basically a giant shopping street and ooooh do we plan on going back! Hah! We finally stopped at a pub which only served 21 and older for some reason, and lied about our ages. We couldn't figure out the age restriction, but most people in there were in their 50s or older.

After lunch, we went to the Museum of Modern Art, and then to the Cathedral. It's a gothic cathedral, something like the only one left in Scotland or something (Jake is an architecture admirer and told me but I forgot, oops). Anyway, it was gorgeous. Over a hill behind it you could see an old cemetary, and inside the stained glass was just beautiful. We got there just at closing, so we took a brief tour, took photos, and left. Then we headed back to Buchannan to take more photos (including one of a busker, which reminded me of London freshman year) and then back to the bus.

That evening, I was so tired, I basically passed out with the light on.

Over all it was a fun trip, and we do plan on going to Glasgow again when we will have more time to look around. It was a lot colder there than it's been here, but it's starting to cool down here again, too. No more 50s and mild, it seems; we're in for a week of low-30s.

Photos have been updated!

Also, I turned in my first ever paper! ...and then realized I had forgotten the bibliography. They're very picky about plaigarism here, so I need to rectify that. Oops.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! We're watching here, at 11pm to about 5am, but I don't plan on seeing the end of it.

-A-