Perthshire Amber 5

Short day today, just a small gig over at the Edradour Distillery, in the hills behind Pitlochry. Dougie playing fiddle with John Morran, a wonderful DADGAD guitarist. I’ve actually been looking forward to this gig, as I love a lot of the tunes Dougie has written, and I got to meet John on our first night at Butterstone and he’s a lovely lovely guitar player. And of course it’s at Edradour, the smallest distillery in Scotland (possibly the world), and maker of possibly the best whisky I’ve ever tasted -but more about that later.



It’s a great show, subtle, beautiful, made all the nicer for being in a beautiful stone-floored room with an attentive audience. John and Dougie even played a fair bit from the actual Perthshire Amber album (and one of my favourite tunes, Mr and Mrs MacLean from Snaigow which he wrote about his parents), and I could see Sarah’s fingers itching to play the Perthshire Amber flute parts!



Edradour have just released a special 12-year old single malt that they’re calling Caledonia, in association with Dougie, and it’s a very special drop, but not as special as the dram I had later that day. Andrew, the distillery owner sidled up to me that evening and asked if I’d like a try of ‘something interesting’. He produced a very shifty-looking flask from his pocket and poured me a shot of what was quite easily the greatest thing I have ever tasted. It was a 45 year old single he’d just decasked (not sure if that’s the right word, I was far too away with the whisky faeries to remember). I doubt anything will ever come close to that.