Ballindalloch – A Rainy-Day Whisky Tour and Lunch in Grantown

Ballindalloch Distillery

Ballindalloch Distillery stands beside the A95, about a mile south of the castle gates, on the estate the Macpherson-Grant family has called home since 1546. There's parking at the distillery. It was made from a farm steading of 1848, and its barley is grown on the estate's own farm. Production is all done by hand, and you can follow each step, from the mill to the stills, in the one building. On the Short Tour & Drams, a host walks you through the production area in 45 minutes, past the washbacks, the Oregon pine vats where the wash ferments. Then you taste two Ballindalloch whiskies that show how the spirit matures in American white oak barrels and European sherry butts. It costs £20 a person, and everyone on it must be 18 or over. Whoever is driving can ask for a driver's bottle. Afterwards, the No. 5 Washback Bar, its counter of the same Oregon pine, pours the whole Ballindalloch range.

Grant Arms Hotel

Lunch

It's 23 minutes' drive up the Spey to Grantown-on-Spey, where lunch is in the Capercaillie Bar of the Grant Arms Hotel, the grey stone hotel on the Square. There's parking on the High Street. At lunchtime the bar serves soup, sandwiches and hot dishes, and it keeps a long whisky list, much of it from the Speyside distilleries round about. On a Sunday, lunch is the hotel's roast in the Durbury Room instead.