The reason Michael and Drams Scotland are getting 5 stars (5 green dots on Trip Advisor) is simple, they did everything right. Short TLDR version: From first email to when Michael dropped us off at our hotel after our tour, everything was perfect. Everything. Do not hesitate to book With Drams Scotland, they will take care of you. Read on below if you want more details.
We are a demanding group of Americans and we wanted to see Scotland and drink Whiskey, a lot of whiskey. I emailed with 4-5 tour companies asking about options for travel and distillery visits and to be fair, several companies seemed like they would have worked out. What stood out about Drams was Ann Marie seemed to innately know what we wanted, and her proposed itinerary blew the competition out of the water.
Drams does many different kinds of tours. Spending time chatting with Michael, our tour guide and drunk wrangler, he told us about the many different kinds of tours they offer. I saw on Yelp that many reviews are for one or two day trips, and thats cool, but we did a 5 day trip and I honestly wish it could have been longer.
If you are looking for a Highlander tour, they do that. Want to see Loch Ness? They do that too. You and 300 other Americans will be there taking pictures of a large body of water, brilliant. If you want to see Scotland the real, American way, well they have that tour nailed down and I highly recommend it. Whiskey!
5 days, no mercy. 12+ distilleries, private tastings, private dinners, local pubs, sheep, great B&B's, great sites, hikes to castles, trips to the coast, two drunken ferry rides, more sheep, scary small local roads, fish and chips (get the cod), pies (the meat kind), pints and pints of beer, cool towns, and the best part, avoiding other tourists.
You know whats better than snootily sipping whiskey in an overpriced bar in America? Drinking it strait out of the cask in Scotland. You seriously do this at several distilleries. To really be able to see the great distilleries you need a good guide. We were able to tour Balvenie, a truly amazing and very private tour, because Michael has to connections to get you in there. We were drinking 50 year old Lagavulin at 930am in their barrel house cause we wanted to start our day off right. We played pool with the locals in the town pub till they closed the bar, while the tourists ate at their tourist trap hotels.
We saw the castle from Monty Python, some sheep, where they filmed Braveheart (do not discuss Braveheart with Michael, he will tell you the truth about William Wallace and try to convince you that Robert the Bruce was the real hero), hiked to a cool castle that I do not remember the name of, learned many local sayings that I arrogantly use at home now, and laughed so hard the whole time our faces hurt. And whiskey.
If you are thinking of booking a Whiskey tour, do it, and do it with Drams Scotland, you will not be disappointed. read more
