Pedals and Whisky

Posted bycinnicrewPosted inScotland

Day 10

July 23, 2025

Stats: 29 mi, AIS: 2:48 Elev. 1023 ft, Speed: 10.5 mph

This is our last day to take our time… pedal and stop for pictures. Go wherever we want and not be in a hurry. Are we ever in a hurry?

Our route today

The first stop today was a tour of a whisky (no “e” in Scotland) distillery. It was about 45 minutes up and over the hill toward the ocean again. Scotland’s famous for single malt peaty (smoky) whisky. I am not a whisky drinker but sampling was fun and I did like some more than others. I think it’s an acquired taste. The tour coincidentally was led by a young man named Rhuaridh (Rory) that Sandy knew from Glasgow. He’s a friend of Sandy’s son. Anyway, we all learned alot about the process of making whisky. This particular distillery actually does the entire process on this site of a working farm. Grow the barley, ferment and malt the barley, distill and bottle all their whisky.

Kilchoman Distillery
Jim with his tasting cup. We had 5 tastes! Usually it’s three but Rory gave us preferred customer treatment.
The process of making whisky
First stop was to see the peat pile
The oven that heats the peat and captures the smoke and penetrates the
barley for flavor
Where they add water to the barley and mash the liquid out to send to the still
Where the liquid is distilled twice
before bottling
They barrel the whisky in bourbon barrels (the small ones)
and sherry barrels (the big ones)
The barrel storage room. This whisky is bottled at 4-5 years old.

Leaving the distillery we headed to a beach nearby called Machin Bay. We didn’t stay long because it was starting to drizzle. Today’s weather was cloudier, foggier and colder than yesterday. Once you’re riding on your bicycle you warm up quickly.

Machin Bay beach. There were many hiking trails along this beach.
Lots of birding in the area

From Machin Bay headed north to take a road out and back (5 miles) that took us to another beach on the Atlantic Ocean… Sanaigmore Bay. This was really pretty beach with lots of rocky cliffs along the edge. Quiet with just a few families there playing in the water.

We did learn that in Scotland you can cross onto private property if you are walking or biking (non motorized) as long as you are respectful. Wow!!

Curt making friends with the
Clydesdale horses
Old military bunker of some sort. There were 3 or 4 that we could see.
This was on private property
with a few horses milling around.
Parking the bikes to go to the beach
Narrow gateway
Stone property fences along the path to access the beach
Deep fissures in the rocks
We saw so many sheep today… all day long…everyday actually.

Returning back to our main route we took another side route further west and then back to the main road to Port Charlotte. 2 miles before Port Charlotte we made a quick stop at one ore distillery. Much larger operation than the one this morning. The highest priced whisky I saw on the shelf for sale was 1500 pounds! It was aged 30 years.

And then we saw a Highland cow

We had hoped to eat at a seafood restaurant but we did not have “booking” so we couldn’t get in. Back to Lochindaal Bar where we were 2 nights ago.

To finish the night the Port Charlotte Hotel has live traditional music on Wednesday nights. We stopped in the bar to catch the music. The bar was very small and crowded. The music was fun and lively but too crowded and warm to stay very long.

Whisky is so popular on Islay they have the local whisky bottles on tap! There are currently 9 distilleries on the island. Soon two more coming. It is one of the top industries on the island.
The very busy bartender
The musicians in the corner of the tiny bar
A little bit of the music and bar scene

That takes care of our last day on Islay. Tomorrow we rise early to catch the ferry at 9:45 to the mainland and retrace our route back to Glasgow. We fly home the following day. Our lovely tour of Scotland is soon going to end.

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