If you go to Orkney, one of the "must do's" is the tour of one of the two distilleries on the Mainland.  There is Scapa Distillery which you can't miss if you walk along Scapa Beach as it sits at one end of the beach, but which is not open to the public for tours:

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and Highland Park Distillery, based just on the outskirts of Kirkwall. RC-130132-29092013

 

I timed my arrival perfectly for the tour, as ahead of me I could see a coach load of folk just completing their tour, and my timing meant that on my tour there was just me!  I was pleased to note that they were quite happy to run the tour for just one person (Stevan opted to take the dogs for a run on Scapa beach instead).  The tour began with a brilliant and beautifully filmed video about the distillery, which I hoped would be on their website, but I can't see it.  Magnus Eunson is credited with establishing the distillery, and Karen, my guide, had a number of entertaining tales about Magnus.

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Highland Park is one of only 7 distilleries in Scotland which still do their own malting.  Sadly they were not malting at the time that I did my tour, but this is the long room where the grain is spread after it has been thoroughly soaked and then left to germinate on the floor, being turned by hand every few hours:

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They have two kilns which both smoke and dry the barley using peat for 20 hours, and then the drying process is finished using coke which burns at a higher temperature.  The barley absorbs flavours during the peat firing of the kiln - it is from the peat that the whisky obtains the smoky flavour.  The distillery have their own peat bog on Orkney where the peat is dug and dried for use in the kilns.  The kilns are from the 1930's:

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and are still operated using the original 1930's instructions!:

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One of the delightful things about the distillery that I enjoyed was the low tech approach to many aspects of the running of the distillery.  Here were a couple of signs around the distillery which clearly indicated that it was run by real people, not by computers or timers:

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The buildings themselves are a wonderful mix of colours,

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If you find yourself in Kirkwall, do the tour.  Even if you don't drink whisky it is informative and enjoyable, and there were many memorable aspects to the tour which I've not covered, including a tale about how the mash tun was used during the war by soldiers, and exactly how the casks used for maturing the whisky are made - it is not a simple process, and the distillery does not  buy second hand casks.  And if you do enjoy whisky then perhaps you'll be tempted by the bottle of whisky dated 1963 - I can't remember the exact price but I seem to remember thinking you wouldn't get much change out of £4000.