It’s quite touristy, and you probably won’t get much out of it if you already have some scotch know-how, but the Scotch Whisky Experience in Edinburgh is still a decent enough way to spend an hour or so.
It starts with a slow-moving, low-rent-Disney type of ride in which a ghost gives you an overview of how scotch is made. It’s cheesy, but it’s a fun way to go over the basics of scotch production.
After that, you walk through a few exhibits and watch a couple of videos on the five scotch-producing regions in Scotland, and then finally at the end of the tour you get to try some scotch. The tour comes with one glass of scotch, and you can pay a bit extra to try a scotch from all five regions. I did this, because if you’re in Scotland, you may as well drink a bunch of scotch.
It was interesting to try all the varieties in such close succession, though I’ll admit that other than the overt smokiness of the Islay scotch, they all tasted quite similar to me.
Also, drinking five scotches in a row is probably not something you want to do. They weren’t quite regulation-sized amounts of scotch, which is good because that wouldn’t have ended well for anyone. I enjoyed all of them, but I was still a bit scotched out by the end.
They also have a store with an impressive selection of bottles to buy. That includes this bottle of 50-year-old Balvenie, which costs a mere £27,500.
