Scotland, Day 14: Travel to Edinburgh, Glenturret Distillery, Dinner at the Devil’s Advocate

September 15, 2021

This morning we were leaving Archiestown, heading to our final destination of Edinburgh. We decided to stop off to get some coffee before the long drive (a bit over 3 hours). Which actually was more like 4.5 hours, as we decided to re-route and stop at a distillery on the way.

We stopped at The Gather’n Cafe, and on walking in… saw an entire room, with tons of wool on display. A very unexpected find for us, when we were just on the lookout for coffee.

I don’t have a good photograph to represent this leg of the journey – but we opted to take a detour to visit Glenturret Distillery.

We approached the distillery from the North, and I’m not sure what route we took. It felt like we were coming in through the back way, as we drove through some really beautiful, mountainous terrain.

I remember both Liz and I remarking just how lovely our drive was, and it was memorable enough that it still wows me today, thinking back on it. I’m so very happy we opted to do this detour, and this leg of our driving was yet another fantastic moment.

Closer to the distillery, we were on some fairly quiet, single-lane roads. And Liz was able to capture this perfectly framed photo.

Inside, we were surprised to find a cat… just taking a nap on the sofa, in the main waiting area.

A bit further outside, we noticed a cat door – built into the side of the distillery.

And then we came across a statue of Towser the Mouser.

Towser: 21 April 1963 – 20 March 1987

Towser the famous cat who lived in the Still House Glenturret Distillery for almost 24 years. She caught 28,890 mice in her lifetime. World mousing champion, Guiness book of records.

A spot of lunch inside the cafe.

A look at the bottles available at the bar. We ended up not staying here, since we were not ordering drinks… and instead got a few tastes in the shop.

The drive departing Glenturret was also ridiculously beautiful.

We ended up driving through a small town on our way out (which felt more like the “front door”). We didn’t understand where all the cars were coming from, on our drive down these desolate, quiet roads on the way to the distillery. On the way out, we figured it out.

Our room at Hotel du Vin, in Edinburgh.

I have to say: I got relaxed driving along single lane and two lane roads. When we re-entered an actual city, I got very tense and nervous again. I felt loose and confident on the smaller roads; city driving remains stressful.

For dinner, we walked a bit down to a place called The Devil’s Advocate. Liz was excited to show me what a “close” was, a term which I didn’t know/understand until arriving in Edinburgh.

Closes are somewhat similar to alleyways, describing a section where buildings are “close” together.

Our spot for drinks/dinner was actually located in Advocate’s Close.