On the third day of the trip, we started our descent south from Thurso toward Inverness and the next logical stop was Old Pulteney Distillery as we took the coastal road. The distillery resides inside Wick so it’s one of the rare cases where a distillery resides inside an urban zone and it wasn’t easy to spot the entrance, especially when you’re in a hurry to get to the tour.
We hurried inside to start the tour and to play detective. I had an important mission to find out who’s the handsome guy who is a good virtual friend and also posing as a fellow blogger that I never met before 😉
Luckily I didn’t have to exert my few grey cells as it’s been only us in the tour, making it a cozy, warm and full of laughs tour. It must be noted that the our lovely and charming guide Kathie helped too toward this goal. In fact, the tour guide is the most important component from the distillery side. A good guide will make the tour unforgettable while a bad guide can ruin a tour even at your favorite distillery.
And so we toured, cheerful and energetic, stopping at all the obligatory stations. the only negative: it was a quiet day dedicated to maintenance, so there was a low-key energy around, like a big bear sleeping. Continue reading
Nose: Lots of peat yet it is weaker than it felt in Dunder. It’s probably mitigated by the PX cask as the sherry notes are quite prominent here. Dried fruits, sour berries, raisins, sweet, cloves, weak cooked cinnamon. With further exposure to air there are cherries like in herring liquor, it is sweeter and the peat is taking back seat. 
Nose: Soft earthly and clean peat with it does have some high spikes in peat strength. After a minute or two in the glass there’s sweet caramel and also nice dark brown sugar note – feels very balanced yet a bit flat. I decided to give it (lots of) extra time in the glass and was rewarded with ripe banana & green banana peels notes. Heck, there were even some floral notes sneak ins. 
Nose: First impression: creamy peat. Seriously, it like a mix of bowl of peat with a bottle of crream. digging deeper soft, musky and creamy, vanilla, fruity with pears and has a cloudy feeling (as it’s not clear and fresh). 
Nose
Nose: Peat yeah! soft and surprisingly very gentle, lemon, gentle smoke, fruit, pears, barley sugar. After a few minutes some dough and fresh baked bread sprinkled with icing and lemon peels.
After the sea cross, a bus to Kirkwall, visiting the Orkney museum (A must!), our ride arrived:
Whisky Gospel 