So, if you’ll think back to our last Scotland post a few weeks ago, we’d survived a gale force windstorm in Inverness, then were skunked by a tribe of elusive bottlenose dolphins at Chanonry Point on the banks of the Moray Firth.  Next stop: Gordon country!

To be genealogically honest, I’m solidly multi-ethnic, roughly proportioned into quarters: Mom’s mom Norwegian, Mom’s dad Prussian German (Mennonite), Dad’s mom English, and Dad’s dad Scottish by way of Canada.  However, the main reason I was so fired up to visit the land of my father’s father is simply that I’m a Gordon by name.  As our exceptional Sixt rental car agent Brad in London put it, he himself being a Scotsman and learning of our upcoming travels there, “With a name like Glenn Gordon, Glenn AND Gordon, now that’s a Scotman’s name.  You need to throw that around like you belong there.”

My brother Eric has explored voraciously the branches of our family heritage and through christening and marriage records identified two neighboring Speyside villages as significant: Rothes being the birthplace of both our great great great grandparents, Janet Robertson and Alexander Findlay; and Dufftown in the Mortlach parish where in 1835 they married.  Soon after tying the knot they emigrated to Canada, where their daughter Jessie married John A. Gordon.  And that, my friends, is where it all began.

Okay, halfway between Rothes and Dufftown lies the tiny burgh of Aberlour, home of the distillery by the same name, and our three nights lodging at the quaint Aberlour Hotel.  Our goal for those three days: dig into my Findlay/Robertson roots . . . and sample a lot of Scotch.

Bidding those bashful bottlesnouts a fond farewell, we decided to ramble our route along the southern coast of the Moray Firth through Nairn and Moray Councils.  The A96 takes a hard right turn in the village of Nairn, and with nature calling and stomachs grumbling, we found a parking spot on Gordon Street, and walked a half block to the quaint Cafe Nairn.  We indulged in craveable bacon & cheese croissants with our coffees and a sweet pastry treat, but were most enthralled by the options for a genuine Scottish breakfast with a pick of up to twelve components.  See the list in the photo.  We asked our matronly server if anyone ever ordered all 12 and she amusedly responded, “All the time, darling.  There’s at least one every morning.  Both men and the ladies.”

Moving on, we kept to the A96, then forked left at Forres and regained the coastline at Burghead, where we watched the angry sea for a bit, then continued to the Moray Golf Club - a true links-style course - and on to Lossiemouth, where we stretched our legs at the Harbour.  With still some time to spare before hotel check-in, and tempted by the dozen single malt whisky distilleries between here and there, we settled on Speyburn, simply because the roof looked so awesome.

We encountered several of those pagoda-style oast (kiln) buildings among the Speyside distilleries and learned their primary purpose was to enhance the natural air draft necessary to efficiently dry the germinated malt.  Invented by architect Charles Doig in the late 19th century, the “Doig Ventilator” creates a vacuum effect, drawing the smoke and hot air from a peat fire up through the malt, which is spread on a mesh floor.  That drying process in the oast stops any germination, essential for producing the finished malted barley for whisky.

We weren’t interested in an official tasting, so they handed us off to a skinny young kid in a dress shirt a couple sizes too large, home for the season from “uni” and five days into his summer job.  We were his first customers solo, and he blew us away with his depth of knowledge . . . though timidly delivered.  And he effectively upsold us on their core whisky, as they were on the verge of diluting their ABV percentages to accommodate an increasingly dominant and demanding Asian clientele.  We wish him well.

The Aberlour Hotel sits right on the main road through Charlestown, and we found ourselves relieved I’d found the place online, because there sure ain’t much else in Aberlour-town: the distillery, maybe three restaurants, one coffee shop that never seemed to be open, and then another with delicious food, decent coffee, and an entertaining rugrat clearly at home in his mother’s dining room.  We parked the car in back, arriving at the same time as another lodger, the two of us delicately navigating our vehicles into the remaining two spaces.  Turns out the occupants hailed from rural Montana by way of South Africa, a young couple and her parents, all in the mining industry.  Over the next 2.5 days we bumped into them a half dozen times.

Our afternoon walk retraced our route into town then looped around to a well-worn trail along the River Spey.  Pastorally beautiful, the path led us beside a swift flow of sundappled water with open grass fields on the opposite side and low treed hills in the distance.  We came out the other end near the Mortlach parish church and cemetery (we’d be visiting those the next day), and we poked our heads in the Aberlour Distillery, too late for a proper tasting, but early enough for a quick nip.  Good stuff.  I’d been gifted a bottle many years ago, and the taste was shockingly familiar.  Unfortunately, our intentions to return never materialized.

After showering off the road miles, we walked to the Mash Tun, the unequivocal best eatery in town (we ate there twice!) for a fantastic dinner of haggis and black pudding with toasted sourdough and caper dressing (don’t believe the negative press: haggis is delicious!), hot smoked salmon nicoise with baby green beans, and seafood gnocchi, stuffed with salmon, scallops, cod, crab, and tiger prawns, with spinach, leek, peas, and a parsley cream sauce.  Yes, that gnocchi was as awesome as it sounds.

For dessert we had our first cranachan, a traditional parfait-ish Scottish dessert of cream and fresh seasonal raspberries, bolstered by Stalla Dhu whisky, honey, and toasted Scottish oats.  More, please.  And on another night, perhaps in the company of my fellas back home, we might have scooched over to the outdoor smoking tent for several scotches and a fine cigar.

We rose early, navigated the rat maze of hotel hallways to make our exit, and drove into Dufftown, renowned as the malt whiskey capital of the world, due to the number of distilleries situated nearby.  We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of sausage muffins and coffee at the Cozy Coo (that last word meaning cow, and specifically that Highland breed of shaggy-haired cattle endemic to Scotland, and the oldest registered breed in the world, first appearing in records from the 6th century in the Outer Hebrides).  And at the center of Dufftown stands its Clock Tower, built in 1839 from local grey granite with pink granite dressings, and originally a jail.  As my ancestors on the Findlay side were masons by trade, there’s a solid chance they contributed to its construction. 

Next door to the Cozy Coo sits WhiskyBrother & Co., an outstanding spirits shop with an incredible array of Scotland’s whisky, and on this day helmed by a gent named Josh Edge, recently hired there, but many years steeped in the history and indulgence in all things Scotch whisky.  He even co-hosts an enjoyable podcast called the Whisky Pilgrims.  We listened to a couple of episodes while driving and got a kick out of the content almost as much as the cool accents.  Josh spent a half hour stuffing our brains with all things whisky and we left with several airplane samples of his favorite offerings.

From there we returned to Aberlour and walked a quarter mile to the Mortlach parish church where my ancestors Janet Robertson and Alexander Findlay were married.  We meandered through the hundreds of tombstones, many crumbling and barely legible, and were shocked by how many Gordons we encountered.  And Robertsons.  And Findlays.  I doubt the Gordons had any blood connection to my family, but my brother Eric believes that Jessie Findlay’s husband John A. Gordon might also have roots in Moray County, so who knows . . .

And as we exited the cemetery we walked past the Mortlach Distillery, originally (and illicitly) established in 1823, and the oldest of the renowned Dufftown distilleries, and a favorite of my brother.  They don’t offer tastings, so we sought those at a sister distillery later that afternoon.

We had a tasting date at the Glenfiddich Distillery, but stopped first at its whisky-sister Balvenie Castle a stone’s throw away.  It looked promising from the outside - time-eroded majesty - but with little dignity left in its 800-year old bones, now sight-polluted and obscured by chain-link fencing and yellow caution tape, protecting its sparse visitors from harm.  Sad.

Glenfiddich, on the other hand, was incredibly awesome!  Tons of moolah spent well.  Perfectly manicured lawns, freshly painted, white-trimmed buildings, casual pathways throughout the grounds.  You can spend a half day there wandering.  We secured a small table in their tourist-packed tasting room - good thing we had a reservation - and chose our particular flight from an array of choices.  As with most industries these days, the whisky world is now dominated by a handful of parent companies, each owning several, if not dozens, of individual distilleries.  At a tasting, you can generally sample offerings from all of that parent company’s affiliates, in this case William Grant & Sons.  We included an Aerstone, crafted on the Ayrshire coast of the Scottish Lowlands, and tinged with a hint of sea salt on the finish. 

Oh, and the current chairman of William Grant & Sons?  That’s him in the photo.  No relation.  Unfortunately.

Then came the first of two distillery highlights of our time in Speyside.  On “whisky brother” Josh Edge’s definitive recommendation we drove to the nearby and quite young (at only 10 years old) Ballindalloch Distillery, unique in their old school, manual processing methods and minimal digital systems in the crafting of their spirits.  In the course of the tour we noticed dozens of the 200+ blue-painted valves and levers, each of them requiring a perfectly-timed crank, by hand.  We also learned that despite the distillery’s youthful appearance, the Ballindalloch estate itself has been home to the Macpherson and Grant families since 1546 - a few decades shy of 500 years.  Our guide was 23-year old Aidan Dunn, who’d already spent 2 years training in Hong Kong, and is now their International Sales Executive.  His family has been in the whisky industry for seven generations, originally establishing the Ben Nevis Distillery in 1825.  Aidan was pleased to know we’d stopped there on our drive to Inverness. (We didn’t admit, however, it was only for a potty break.)  Great kid.  Great whisky.  One of the few we’ve toted with us to bring back home to the U.S.

We’d hoped for dinner at the Spey Inn in Craigellachie, but after waiting a bit for a table, we walked across the street to the Highlander Inn, where a young Osakan waiter seated us.  When I asked what brought him to Scotland, he explained his 2-year apprenticeship in Speyside to learn all he could about single malt whisky, knowledge he’d take back with him to Japan to use in the burgeoning whisky industry there.  Our dinner of a shared smoked salmon and caper salad, and a not so smashing smash burger, became secondary to a cool conversation with a family at the neighboring table, in town for a wedding.  Daughter, granddaughter, and a life-seasoned couple from the Shetland Islands, the northernmost region of the UK, and at a higher latitude than even Oslo and Bergen, Norway.  He worked with sheep, and was happy to tell us all about it.

A long couple of days and with lots to tell.  Probably enough for one blog post.  We’ll pick up on our last day in Speyside and travels to Aberdeen in the next day or so.  In other words,

We’ll be in touch.