Highland White Lightning

Nicki & I spent New Year/my birthday at a lodge in Aultbea, in NW Highlands (see map).

Almost next door to where we were staying were the Drumchork Lodge Hotel and the really small Loch Ewe Distillery, although both were closed for the season.

This is all there is to the distillery and bond buildings

However, when I stopped off to take a couple of pictures one afternoon I bumped into the owner of the distillery who had come up to collect the mail and generally check that everything was okay. We got chatting and I persuaded him to open the shop and sell me some whisky.

However, due to the somewhat torturous regulations surrounding the sale of spirits he told me that, although he is licensed to produce whisky at the distillery and store it at the bond next door, he is not allowed to sell any directly to the public. So, to get around this restriction he ‘sells’ it to his wife who is the licensee for the hotel and, as an employee of the hotel, he can then sell it to me. So, into the hotel bar we went.

I ended up getting this miniature of un-matured ‘UisgeBeatha’, which comes in a bottle with a partially hand-written label and is hand-sealed with wax. As it is clear (white) and only four months old you aren’t allowed to call it whisky, just malt spirit. As close to moonshine as you can probably get while keeping everything within the law.