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My Handcrafted Opinions on Whiskies, Distilleries and Other Related Stuff

Wild Turkey, Kentucky, USA

Confession time, I did not take the distillery tour.  This was my sixth and final stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and I did go to the Visitor Center and get my KBT passport stamped and completed, but I arrived around 1pm and the next tour was not until 2:30pm.  However the nice people at the distillery suggested I watch a video they use at start of tour and join the tasting when the 12:30 tour got back.  As there was no tour for another 90 minutes and no cafe or similar where I could eat lunch, I accepted their offer.  The video was the "usual fare" with father and son Jimmy and Eddie Russell taking the viewer on a virtual tour of the distillery stage by stage, however before the video finished the tour group came back and the tasting began.  Wild Turkey had the best choice of any distillery I visited on the KBT, and we were invited to choose  two samples from the full range of bourbon and rye whiskies, standard and premium brands.  I chose one of my favorites, Wild Turkey Rare Breed and the Russell Reserve Rye.   They also sold a nice range of mini bottles (I bought the Wild Turkey 101, Rare Breed and their American Honey liqueur) in their gift shop.

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Laphroaig (Virtual Tour), Islay, Scotland

Laphroaig (Virtual Tour), Islay, Scotland

This was my sixth Virtual Distillery Tour (VDT#6) and although I have been to Islay I did not tour Laphroaig. The technology used is similar to that of Sipsmith. It is a 4:20 Youtube video with the 360 degree scrolling feature and a running commentary. Very easy to navigate and focussed on the unique things about Laphroaig, like Islay’s remoteness, the heavy use of local peat and floor maltings and its famous (infamous) flavour profile rather than the distillery itself. There was of course mention of the water source in those hushed tones that made you feel you were expected to know about it already, so just like a real Scottish distillery tour but without a happy cow joke. In fact the 4 minute plus video only had a few seconds of footage actually in the distillery. More screen time was given to peat bogs, bubbling burns, dark warehouses and of course the photogenic Islay coastline.

Really well done (as you might expect, always expect some good marketing at Laphroaig) but more of a promotional video with some scrolling features than a distillery tour. See for yourself at https://www.laphroaig.com/en/islay/distillery-tour

What is this:  https://www.somanywhiskies.com/item/894-distillery-tours-from-my-couch-1

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