Picked up a car at Aberdeen airport and headed west. Following the broad swift flowing river Dee for a while. Past rows of the posh Dee-side manors with their imposing gardens behind high granite walls. Turned north at Ballater to head into the hills. Following the line that might have been taken by a soaring sparrow hawk. Over the bare, rolling, heather covered, high country, snow poles line the edge of road along the ridge. Over the top and down into Tomintoul. A neat little village with one church, three hotels, a whisky shop, a wifi café. And a distillery. Of course. It seems to be a rule that all villages must have a distillery. We have arrived just in time for a sort of folk concert.

Patrick the Canadian swaggers about in big boots, convincing knees nudging out from under a leather kilt. He is tall big boned and rangy, with a flowing grey mane. It is necessary for him to look like the laird because he has plans to turn one of the hotels into a boutique restaurant and accomm. The hotel that he has chosen – The Gordon – has suffered many deaths. He is not without enthusiasm and energy. He has set about seriously gathering huge imposing dead furniture and grand pianos with which to furnish his vision. This was the venue for the concert, given by “Yard of Ale”, a band formed in 1972 and still running one of the originals. Packed with locals. Rollicking good time, lubricated by the next door bar.

Avon is pronounced Arn. “It’s Tomintowl” they howl, “not Tomintool – y’ fool!”. Ben Aigan is Ben Egg and Maggieknockater is Maggieknockater. We just had to drive out to see Maggieknockater, conjures up wonderful images. Sad to relate Maggiek… is only half a dozen cute cottages and a very ugly car repair workshop. BUT, the narrow back road home snaked through a cathedral of ancient overhanging autumn coloured oak trees. Lovely

Patrick the gamekeeper led our assault on Ben Aigan. Patrick is married to Anne who is one of the 4 nurses in our party who all trained together in 1970 in   Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.  So you can see that it is very much a family affair. Some of us are sharing a house for the week in Tomintoul. On the Scottish classification, a “Munro” is a mountain over 3000 ft. and a “Corbett” over 2500 ft. Ben Aigan doesn’t quite rate as a Corbett, but it did provide a bracing afternoons up hill trudging. Highlights were 360 deg views of the distant misty mountains and the magic mushrooms in the gloomy shadows of the pine forest.

The hamlet of Glen Livet and it’s distillery is at the other end of the Glen Livet estate from Tomintoul. When George Smith established the Glen Livet distillery in the early 19^th century, the pastime was illegal. Never-the-less his reputation for producing fine whisky was such that when king George IV visited the region, he requested a tasting of the Glen Livet. On being reminded that whisky production was illegal, the king was sure that they would manage to find some. Which they did, with little difficulty. The King was so impressed that he declared he would never henceforth drink anything else. We tried a few expressions of Glen L at the distillery, good, but times have changed.

Whisky production is not what it was. A few years ago, The Glen added a massive extension. They no longer malt their own barley, nor cooper their own barrels, nor do they do the bottling on site. The precious fluid is shifted by massive tankers to the bottling plant in far away Paisley. Still tastes quite nice.

As far as we have seen, the record for “nice” has been a bottle 50 year old Glen Fiddich – offered for sale in their distillery shop for 20,000 pounds. Would sir enjoy being the owner of a nippy little car? Or, perhaps, a 750 ml bottle of slops?

Nearby Ballindalloch castle has been in the hands of the McPherson – Grants for six generations. They are still the owner-occupiers. Guy, the present man of the house personally conducts guided tours of the public part of the house. He was overheard telling one of the guests “I don’t normally appear like this, wearing a kilt, it’s just that I’ve been grouse shooting this morning.

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Mike and Cathy Drury run the village whisky shop in Tomintoul with great enthusiasm and skill. On the counter there is a vast spread of single malts for tasting. Mike does enjoy talking about the subject, but he also listens. And is an excellent marriage broker between liquor and people. The shop holds the Guiness record for the worlds largest bottle of single malt whisky. Not sure where the bottle came from, but the whisky was produced in the village by the Tomintoul distillery. Sorry, the big bottle not available for tasting.

There are many pastimes to be enjoyed in Scotland apart from the water of life. And we intend to find out what they are. We really do.