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The Royal Mile

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The Busiest Mile in All of Tourism

If you want to see the most concentrated real estate in all of tourism, I recommend the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. At one end is Edinburgh Castle. One passes historic pubs and fascinating museums, the towering hulk of St. Giles Cathedral in the center, and ending at Holyroodhouse Palace, from where Mary Queen of Scots ruled.

In my visits to Britain, I have always preferred Scotland to England. The food is better, the history more poignant, and the people more friendly. And then there’s the whisky, which can be ethereal. (In one of my boxes of photos is an image of Martine hugging the distillery at Bowmore on Islay.)

I particularly love the Highlands and Islands. My travels north of Edinburgh have included Stirling, Perth, Oban, Loch Ness, Inverness, and the isles of Iona, Mull, Islay, and the Orkney Mainland.

One can’t walk up to Stonehenge and look at it up close, but one can walk up to the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.

As I sit here in Los Angeles during yet another overlong heat wave, I dream of re-visiting some of the places in Scotland Martine and I have seen and having a good meal of haggis and neaps washed down with a wee drappit of Scotch.

Smoky Nectar of the Gods

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Some People Dream of Fine Wines, But Not Me!

Some People Dream of Fine Wines, But Not Me!

I suppose this means I have no right to claim to be sophisticated, or even cosmopolitan. The fact of the matter is that I do not really care that much for wine. I would prefer a fine cognac or a full-bodied dark Jamaican rum—but most of all, I would prefer a fine Islay single malt Scotch.

During Prohibition, one Islay malt called Laphraoig (la-FROIG) was allowed through U.S. customs because it was thought to be a medicine. Oh, it is that to be sure! Like all single malts distilled on the island of Islay (pronounced EYE-lah), it is characterized by a smoky flavor, somewhat like Lapsang Souchong in the world of tea. It owes that smokiness to the peat on the island that is used to in the distilling process. According to Whisky.Com:

The level of smokiness of a whisky is determined by the time the barley grain is exposed to the pungent peat smoke during drying. Damp malt is usually dried for approximately 30 hours. Laphroaig dries its malt over peat fire for about 18 of these 30 hours, while Glengoyne uses only unpeated fire. Thus you get a broad variety ranging from extremely smoky whisky to almost completely smokeless whisky. Malt grains are peculiar in that they lend a hint of smokiness to the whisky even without a peat fire.

By the way, in Scotland, it is always spelled whisky. Only the more inferior products from furriners are referred to as whiskey.

About fifteen years ago, Martine and I spent several days at Bowmore, including a visit to the distillery (pictured above). We had been introduced to Bowmore  (bow-MORE) eight-year-old Scotch by Trader Joe’s stores, which tended to sell it at a steep discount around the holidays. I remember tasting the toasted Bowmore malt and finding it to be so delicious that I thought it would make a great breakfast cereal on its own. We also saw a fantastically aged barrel of the stuff worth thousands of pounds sterling and reserved for H.M. the Queen.

On their website, CBS news has an interesting website about the smoky Scotches of Islay which was started by the late Bob Simon and finished by Steve Kroft. It aired yesterday on “60 Minutes.”

During the early Middle Ages, Islay was the headquarters of the Lords of the Isles, who ruled from a small island on Loch Finlaggan. Their empire stretched across the Hebrides and whatever parts of Ireland and mainland Scotland they could hold. If you are interested in the period, you might try hunting up a copy of Nigel Tranter’s The Lord of the Isles, best enjoyed while sipping a fine Islay single malt whisky.