Whisky for Breakfast
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are:
After Islay and Mull and some pretty epic weather, we’ve now arrived on Skye, where the weather is still very Scottish.
Whisky for Breakfast
Our travel style vacillates between all and nothing. Some weeks we just stare out the window and sip tea. Other weeks, I get it into my head that we need to see All The Things, and I’m off, dragging Lee across town/city/island to tourist like it’s our job.
Lee, bless his heart, is almost always game for whatever adventure I dream up.
Last week, what I dreamt up was whisky.
We were on Islay, the epicenter of Scotland’s whisky scene, and I decided we should walk the Three Distilleries Path—a trail that links the Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and Ardbeg distilleries.
I prebooked us on a tour at the first stop, naively telling Lee it included one dram, to sample.
It did not.
It included three drams. Four, for anyone who seemed particularly enthusiastic. Lee is inherently enthusiastic about most things.
I don’t even like brown liquors. Lee only likes gin. And truthfully, we’ve mostly quit drinking—our organs have already aged like the proverbial fine wine, and we’d rather not pickle them too. But when in Scotland…
I asked the guide to give me just a teaspoon of each dram. That was plenty.
Lee tossed back all of his—every generous pour. He grimaced, he breathed fire—I think his eyes watered. But he drained each glass like a man on a mission, and bellied up to the bar for the next, in quick succession.
By the time we stumbled back down the distillery driveway, he broke—loudly—into an old Mike Cross tune:
Lord preserve us and protect us, we’ve been drinking whisky ‘fore breakfast…
We still had another hour’s walk to reach Ardbeg for lunch. I spent most of it keeping him from wandering into the road. When we finally made it back to our apartment hours later, we collapsed onto the couch in silence and lay there like zombies for what was left of the afternoon.
———
The next morning, feeling our Islay time slipping away, I had another great idea that was not ‘lounge around doing nothing in our Airbnb.’
This time, I wanted to hike to the edge of a cliff to see a monument to two American troop ships that sank just off the coast during the First World War. Mostly I wanted to see the cliffs. Lee likes cliffs, so we hopped in the car.
The drive was about 30 minutes. Most of it was single-track road—the predominant infrastructure of the Hebrides. Lee hates them. He has a point—they require high vigilance.
At the trailhead, we walked a while, just us in the salty wind. Then we hit a gate.
On the other side was a field. In the field were cows. Big, furry Highland cows. With their calves. And their poo. So much poo.
There was no other way around.
We stood at the gate, eyeing their dramatic Highland horns.
“They’re docile,” I said. “Right?”
Lee opened the gate and strode into the field like he owned it. I crept after him. The calves lumbered to their feet and moved off the faint path. The adults never took their eyes off us, but let us pass. It was hard to know where to apply my now-extreme vigilance—to the cows, or to where I was putting my feet. We hopped and scurried, skirting cow piles like landmines, and pass through the far gate without incident—or being gored.
The memorial was beautiful and moving and totally worth the out-and-back. The descriptions of the two shipwrecks are harrowing; the sites of the two wrecks can be seen from the cliff top. On one side of the stone tower is a plaque bearing a personal tribute from President Woodrow Wilson.
Later, I searched online to find out if Wilson had ever actually been there.
I found nothing.
But now I wonder: if he did make the trip, did he also have to cross a field full of imposing cows and their abundant poo?
Because if so, I think he might’ve written a very different sort of tribute.
Take care,
Lisa
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