So much travel and so little time! I’m back for part 2 of the Ireland/Scotland work trip. Catch part one of the recap here. After visiting Ireland, we headed over to Scotland to visit our facilities in Girvan and Dufftown. We flew into Glasgow and stayed at The Dakota. Highly recommend! The breakfast and dinner were really delicious.
On day one in Scotland, we headed to one of our offices and met a member of the Grant family and nosed whisky with the company’s master blender. Very cool! I’ll save those pictures since I’m not sure if I am allowed to post pictures of our whisky library?? That evening, we had an evening with Drambuie in a really cute little restaurant, The Finnieston.
On the second day, we visited Girvan distillery to see how Grant’s whisky is made and then the Hendricks Gin Palace for gin fun. The scenery en route was beautiful!
Below is what the trees and buildings looks like at Girvan. It’s something in the air from distillation, but it looks like another world’s landscape.
It was so loud in the cooperage while they made barrels, I wasn’t sure what the cooper was saying. I imagine he’s praying that no one hurts themselves when he hands the hammer over to us to assemble a barrel for fun.
After touring Girvan, we did a little speed bartending competition. The results were embarrassing, and it’s clear I’ll never be a bartender! I think Will’s flare bartending/shaking made everyone a little nervous, ha!
Up next: the Hendrick’s Gin Palace, on the same property as Girvan distillery. It is pretty much the coolest distillery ever made.
We had the honor of spending the afternoon with Lesley Gracie, the master distiller and gin-ious! She led us on a tour of the new palace, teaching us all things Hendrick’s, and a tasting. She was hilarious with many stories of her adventures to craft the most unique spirits.
Lesley led us to her lab/office which has a cabinet of curiosities, full of unique botanicals and essences to test out.
We tasted through the deconstructed spirit with Lesley as well as the new Midsummer Solstice.
After a full education on how Hendrick’s is made, we had cocktails in the library while learning the history of gin.
For anyone in the industry, how bout that back bar??
The library also had costumes. What’s more fun than a Hendrick’s library with a bar? A Hendrick’s library with a bar that has costumes!
The palace has 2 greenhouses- one for tropical plants and one for Mediterranean plants. Lesley experiments with these plants for potential new spirits. How cool is that?
Even the stills have nice accommodations with a stained glass ceiling piece.
Every detail is Hendricks to a T. The rose and cucumber stained glass windows, hidden H’s in the floor and iron work, and quirky decor. Truly a most unusual palace for a most unusual gin. If you missed part one, here’s Dublin’s write up. Stay tuned for part 3 with Dufftown, Scotland.
In July, I had the fortune of traveling to Scotland for my job. It turned out that flights with a stopover in Iceland were much more reasonable, so I convinced two co-workers to go on a 24 hour adventure in Iceland en route to Scotland!
For Game of Thrones fans, parts of the show are filmed near here. Up the road, we made a stop to the black sand beach of Kleifarvatn Lake.
If you’ve got more time, check out 
