This tasting was one of the most enjoyable ones of our whole trip. Many of the casks in this particular warehouse were “experimental,” and the whole tasting process/group was friendly and fun and really enjoyable.
Today: a big travel day for us. We have a series of ferries to catch, and two islands to visit, as we make our way to our next hotel.
Each bottle represents a single year. What I noticed was the color change, as the years progressed. What I missed was the volume of alcohol that evaporates, year to year (also referred to as “the angels’ share”).
Tour and tasting at Auchentoshan Distillery.
Our rental car for the next two weeks: it was a 20 minute drive from the airport to our B&B, but it was my first time driving overseas. I kept telling myself “Left Left Left Left” over and over, to try to remind myself to stay in the left lane.
Rather than grow them directly in the soil, she is uses these specialized bags that allow for a custom mixture of soil (and also allow the water to drain if overfull).
I’m itching to see the arbor painted, as right now… the white moulding seems just a little chinzy against the natural wood. But since it’s pressure treated lumber (that wasn’t kiln dried afterwards), we need to wait a while until the wood has properly dried out.
Tim’s father, Ray, was the officiant who did the marriage all those years ago. He was also the one who officiated last year (when they officially tied the knot). And he was the officiant today, when Tim and Katie were married in front of all their family and friends.
Ray is in the unique position to have married Katie and Tim not once, not twice, but thrice. Which seems like a very special and lucky thing, if you ask me.
If you look through some of my older/recent backyard posts, you’ll likely spot Tippi in the background. In all her tree-afro glory.
Tippi’s really needed a trim for a while now.
We were able to take several samples home with us, and are narrowing down our options. Luke gave us a lot of his time and guidance, despite the fact that we were (I would imagine) a very small customer, compared to the larger clients and jobs he typically works. He was also incredibly helpful in terms of pricing, and recommendations to keep our costs down.
I got to break up the monotony a bit, by helping move bags of mulch up front. While I didn’t have much to show, our front yard looks great again.
Ready to cut and install the cross beams (the pieces that connect the arches). Liz got these pieces prepped the night before, so that we could hit the ground running when we got off of work today.
Installing the back arch. Things are shaping up! Let’s gloss over just how much shimming and angling was needed, to get these pieces to line up.
Post-work, finally getting around to installing the arches we cut out.
It’s a bit of a daunting process, us committing to installing these things. Because I feel like I did a really poor job of cutting them out. But we sucked it up and tried to align the pieces as best we could.
Found not one but two photos on my phone. Liz continues this terrible habit of snapping photos of me sleeping, and I enable it by posting those photos here.