Take flight

Halfway through the year already – really? At least here in Scotland we’re enjoying better weather and that precious period where the evenings stretch ever longer into the night, we get the chance to dust off the barbecue and savour some outdoor whisky tasting.

It’s also the time to travel, and on the back of last month’s whisky festivals in Campbeltown and Islay, we know that a passion for whisky can be the catalyst for taking a physical trip to where the stuff actually comes from.

I was fortunate recently to join a whisky and cycling trip to the Hebrides, along with the company Saddle Grape & Grain. It’s run by long-time Unfiltered contributor and whisky writer Tom Bruce-Gardyne and his friend Aidan Prior, who organise trips to various Scottish distilleries on two wheels (they also run wine tours in Italy and France, hence the ‘grape’ bit of their name).

In this month’s issue, we hear about our trip to Torabhaig, Raasay and Harris distilleries, three fantastic recent additions to the distilling scene – each in a phenomenally scenic location, contributing great things to their local communities – and producing some wonderful whisky.

You don’t have to be a Tadej Pogačar or Jonas Vingegaard to enjoy this kind of cycling – it’s leisurely, it’s scenic and you certainly earn your food and drams in the evenings.

We head further afield as well, with a visit to a fancy new partner bar in Austria on the shores of the beautiful Wörthersee lake. And we get the chance to find out all about the growing SMWS whisky scene in Singapore, where we now have seven partner bars and a hugely enthusiastic local membership base.

If you haven’t seen it yet and want to be transported to Spain to find out all about how the Society works with sherry casks to mature our whisky, be sure to tune in to our Scotch & Sherry: A Flavour Odyssey documentary – and this month we go in-depth to the forests of Galicia and the cooperages of Jerez to find out more about the creation of these beautiful sherry casks.

It’s amazing where your whisky can take you – even if you’re sitting at home with a copy of Unfiltered and a suitably evocative dram in your hand.

Cheers,