This was our favorite distillery tour. The facility is very pretty and the ambiance was friendly…read moreand helpful. The tour was well done as were the tastings. We were able to explore and take photos afterward. The folks in the store went out of their way to be helpful and gave us a wee taste of a peaty whisky which was amazing! They asked about our plans and gave advice on what to see and where to eat in the area. It was a great experience!

My colleague and I enjoyed the "Pioneer's" tour. It was expensive, but a thorough half-day affair…read more Our tour group was very small, and we started out by relaxing with our tour guide in a cozily-furnished room and discussing the history of the distillery over some coffee. Given the small size of the group, it was easy for conversation to roam far and wide according to the interests of the attendees and the knowledge of our helpful guide. The facilities were lovely, and we got to bottle some of our own to take away from some individual barrels! (Making sure, of course, to dutifully fill out the tax ledger.) We had some chemistry-related questions for our guide, Beth, and when our questions pushed the limits of her knowledge, she followed up after the tour was over, getting us the information we were looking for. Great cafe, good food, beautiful grounds. Worth a visit.

If you only go on one distillery tour while in Speyside, this is the one to go on! You're gonna…read moreneed reservations because it fills up, but it is an in-depth tour of the distillery and their process. The warehouses are fantastic and they have a really good taste after the tour. If you just wanna go to the tasting room because you can't give them a tour, you can spend the lot of money, but you'll have an experience like no other The grounds are amazing and the Balvenie castle ruined is within walking distance and a nice place to have a picnic lunch depending on the time of year. You also walk beside barley fields. Barley that goes in the scotch that you just saw being made or being engaged.

I prefer Balvenie Scotch to Glenfiddich, but I stalked the Balvenie tours for months to no avail,…read moreso I was happy to get a tour booked for Glenfiddich. The tour started right on time, and we were treated to a delightful walk through the property, which is very large. It's beautifully manicured and the ladies room in the main building has a bathroom you could host a balllroom dance in. PLus it has a fireplace. Worth seeing on it's own. Anyway, after the walking tour we were treated to the tastings. I highly recommend if you're doing the Whisky trail to hire a driver, because otherwise, someone in your party is going to get a take home set of samples. Scotland is SERIOUS about their 0.0 legal limit. We hired a driver for the day, so we were all able to taste. We each got tastings of four different scotches. Yum! The gift shop is also very nice, with a wide variety of bottles and well crafted merchandise available for purchase.

I loved my whirlwind trip to the U.K. but I was in search of something I was struggling to find -…read morewhisky I could not buy in the U.S. I wanted to bring back a few bottles for my whisky loving friends and I didn't simply want something that was cheaper than I could get at home. If that was the objective I simply could go south to Oregon to buy cheaper alcohol. No, I wanted to find something unique. And I had a hard time finding it. While my friend bought expensive bottles easily enough I wanted something I could give easily without spending an arm and a leg. Yet everywhere we went I didn't find anything until I went here. The Whisky Shop lived up to its name and provided tons of whisky. On top of that they had small barrels that offered small bottles of whisky you could only buy there. I ended up buying quite a few bottles as I determined I also wanted some for myself! Everyone there was so helpful. After seeing how much I purchased they offered to store the bag while I continued my tour of the city. They offered me samples of everything I wanted to try and they provided great suggestions. I was immensely pleased. I would highly recommend the Whisky Shop!

Friendly and knowledgeable staff with a good selection of modern and traditional Scottish Whisky. I…read moreleft with two bottles and $200 poorer with a smile on my face.

This is just another general Victoria Wine store. The shop is very well laid out in sections of…read morewine, spirits etc. The prices are what is to be expected though I usually find Tesco cheaper for spirits but they can be well priced if there is an offer on and of course they have a better selection of wine than some Tesco stores. There are only a few members of staff but they are helpful when you ask them.

The reason for buying whisky from Nick, the owner, is Nick. Nick Sullivan is a people person. Yes,…read morehe has, he likes to say, about a 1000 different whiskys to choose from in his storefront. But this is a place one visits in an area where it is quite easy to be overwhelmed by choice. Nick is knowledgable, and he will spend time educating you so you can make an informed decision. And shops like Nick's often are the fortunate recipients of whisky vendors supplying him with exceptional ,hard to find (for a visitor to Aberdeen that is) whisky. Yes, he is in business to make a profit; however, when a man like Nick tells you, "this is the whisky my girlfreind and I were drinlking Christmas Day", you listen. And then buy. For it's not the price (super reasonable) but the fact that you feel you can trust his word. It's not only the age of the whisky, but all the other details that go into making a sublime malt drink ever more so. Thank you Nick. If you live nearby, I can't recommend Nick enough. If you are just visiting, like myself, it;s worth the time to drop in and say hi. For those looking for price as the main consideration, you can shop all you want. But you'll be missing the best reason to stop in at Nick's store: Nick himself. A true Aberdeen treasure.

This is, as far as I know, the only independent whisky shop in Aberdeen…read more It's a small shop, filled to the brim with enticing looking whisky. Nick, the owner, is a knowledgeable guy, and normally has a half dozen or so bottles open for you to taste, with dedicated tastings on Saturdays. He also stocks a variety of other spirits, which look pretty impressive. There's something at every price point, from entry level bottles all the way up to rarities costing several hundred pounds. Things can be sourced if not in the shop, as I understand it. Price-wise, an independent shop can't hope to beat the big supermarkets when they put a bottle of scotch on offer, but it certainly compares favourably to un-reduced bottles. A few minutes in here will really broaden your horizons, and you'll probably leave with a new bottle of something a bit esoteric. Cheers!

i shouldn't really start with my (mis)adventures in this haddows. it sells the usual fags, beer and…read morecheap cider so was handy when plenty of those things were my forte. i regulalry used to fall out the phoenix or blackfriars into first the chippy and then haddows after an afternoon on the sauce, erm i mean shopping. memories

10 day whisky festival at the start of May with over 300 events in the home of Malt Whisky. The…read morefinale, on the 9th of May 2009 features Capercaille playing on the banks of the Spey.

My distillery tour and accompanying whisky tasting were enjoyable because of the…read moreup-close-and-personal tour of the inner-workings of the distillery and our superbly engaging and humorous guide Alex. We arrived after the last stated tour time, but since there was another couple with the same fate as us, they offered to do one more basic tour for the 4 of us. Alex immediately plunged us into his whisky world, with a thick but understandable Scottish accent. I haven't been to a large distillery, but from what I've heard Benromach's tours are intimate in the sense that we can walk right up to the mash containers and take whiffs of the premature spirits (it's NOT called whisky until it's finished :)), as well as smelling and even rubbing our hands with the different by-products of the whisky making process (the "head" and "tail"). One of those products had the effect of a nice hand lotion which smelled like whisky. At the end of the tour, Alex was nice enough to let us try small samples of some whisky's which weren't part of the normal tasting. I think it's because we were good tour takers :) If you aren't so lucky at tour's end, I recommend tasting the organic Benromach.

While in the Speyside region of northern Scotland, we toured a few whisky distilleries. Of all of…read morethem, my favorite was Benromach. This small distillery is a short (~30min) train ride from Inverness to the town of Forres. It is then a short walk down the road to the distillery. What I liked about this distillery was that it was a small operation. Because of this we were given a really up close tour of the facility. Our tour guide was an older Scotsman who was pretty funny and also fluent in Spanish. In addition to an overall cool feel to the distillery, the actual tour was really cool, too. Well, if you've done a tour or so, they're pretty much all the same (harvest grain, distill with famous Speyside water, and age it in a wodden barrel, etc.), but I liked this one because we got to see how the whole process works and we were able to ask lots of questions. There's a little museum area where one can see some displays related to the whisky-making process. This is the only place one is allowed to take a picture while going on the tour. Oh, and FYI--Benromach has a barrel which Prince Charles sealed a while back, and is due for a tasting. The tour was then topped off by a tasting of a couple of different Benromach whiskys. I was not a whisky drinker before going to Scotland, but I let half of my heritage kick in, grew an appreciation.