Dornoch Castle Hotel

It looks like a castle, and it is called one, but it began as the palace of the bishops who served the cathedral, and it still looks across the green to the cathedral.

Today it is a hotel, and its rooms range from tartan-hung chambers with four-poster beds and bare stone walls to lighter, plainer rooms. The Garden Restaurant looks over the walled garden and cooks with local produce, and the Vault below is kept for private dinners with wine and whisky to match.

But it is the bar that has made Dornoch Castle famous among whisky lovers, with a long list of rare bottles. The hotel went on to start its own Dornoch Distillery, one of the smallest in Scotland, where whisky is made in an older style from heritage barley.