You will be greeted at Inverness Bus Station by the WOW Scotland team, who will show you on-board our executive WOW mini-coach ready for departure at 8.30am.  As we drive south to our first stop in rural Tomatin your guide will fill you in on what you can look forward to during your whisky-fuelled day out in Speyside, which has the largest concentration of whisky distilleries in the world!  

Here, whisky production is believed to have been a way of life since as far back as the fifteenth century. Hundreds of years of experience may go partway to explaining why their whisky is so special, and we wholeheartedly agree with their motto of having “a whisky which is as easy to enjoy as it is hard to forget”! At Tomatin Distillery you will be taken on a one hour tour, which includes visits to the still house and the warehouse, and a unique opportunity to go inside a mash tun.  This in-depth tour will give you a great foundation for the day ahead. After the tour you will be encouraged to “experience the softer side of the Highlands” with tutored tastings of three specially selected drams.

Here on the banks on the River Spey their knowledgeable and friendly staff provide an excellent experience to all of their guests (so good that they are the highest rated Speyside distillery on TripAdvisor at the moment, with 98% of their guests giving them four or five stars!).  We can certainly understand why as, although they are part of the Diageo brand, they have managed to maintain an intimate and traditional feel throughout.

We will be given an introduction to the distillery before being shown to one of their cosy tasting lounges. In this room you really feel that you are drinking single malt in its homeland of the Speyside hills, and the malts you are treated to will certainly reinforce this feeling.  We will have a triple tasting here: Cragganmore 12 year old; Cragganmore Distiller’s Edition; and Cragganmore Distillery Exclusive Bottling, which is only available to purchase at the distillery, so could be a great liquid souvenir!

Our next stop is at Glenfarclas Distillery, one of the few distilleries in Scotland which is still family owned, and a favourite of our customers due to its informal ambience and unique history. Here we will enjoy an introduction to the distillery and a dram in the unique surroundings of their bonded warehouse. After that we will be accompanied inside, where we will enjoy a second tasting of this traditional Speyside malt, with heavy sherry influence, in the luxurious surroundings of The Ship’s Room.

Casks are an integral component of the whisky production process, with the flavour and quality of whisky being partially determined by the type of cask it is matured in. At Speyside Cooperage, the largest working cooperage in the UK, highly skilled coopers are still using traditional skills to restore and repair casks. We will be treated to a 4D audio-visual presentation, before heading to the viewing gallery to admire the coopers at work.  You can even try your hand at making a mini-cask too!

Completed in 2018, at a cost of £140 million, the Macallan Distillery Visitor Centre sits at the heart of the Macallan Estate, with its ultra-modern brand home offering a stark contrast to all of the other distilleries we visit.   In 2019 it was named as one of the world’s top 100 attractions by Time Magazine, so we know that, for many of our guests, you will be eagerly awaiting this must-see destination.

When we arrive you will have an opportunity to snap a photo of the building that features on bottles of the Macallan; Easter Elchies House. You can then venture inside the centre, where an experienced host will be on hand to give us an insight into what makes the Macallan production process unique.  There are some impressive displays of Macallan to admire and you can also get a view of some of the stills. We will then head upstairs to the panoramic bar, where we will enjoy a dram of specially selected Macallan, whilst enjoying unrivalled views of the Speyside valley.