When I first went to Edinburgh last year, I tried and brought back a whiskey called Edradour. It was so good that we sought to visit the Edradour distillery, which is the smallest distillery in Scotland because it has the smallest wash still (of 400,000 gallons - legal limit). They also only produce 90,000L in a year, which is as much as other distilleries do in a week! They still use a hand-distilling process and haven't resorted to using big machinery or offsite facilities as other distilleries, so that made it pretty special indeed. Not to mention how cute it was!
This was a great little distillery to go through as the free (yes free!) tour and tasting was led by a guide in a kilt, and also included a promotional video at the start describing the distillery’s history and distilling process. They also HAD a liquour license and we tried a couple unique cask strength whiskeys (and a cream whiskey too!) yum!
That afternoon we had a nice pub lunch in the Moulin inn in Pitlochry near Edradour. It was an authentic little pub with its own ales. I was too liquoured out from the scotch tastings so only Syd tried their braveheart ale (a bestseller) and it was really tasty. It was a shame that I had never seen it anywhere else since.
We then thought it might be nice to walk off our stodgy lunch and took a hike among the pass of Killiecrankie, which is a gorge where the some government soldiers were camped out during 1689 to try and block the rebels. However, they instead were ambushed by the Jacobites (rebels) in the pass and the red coats were sent running. Unfortunately for the Jacobites they lost their leader at the time and the rebellion fizzled out for a while until Bonnie Prince Charlie came on the scene in 1725. The gorge (or pass) was absolutely stunning with an old arched rail bridge and a smaller area of rapids and the banks of stones being 18 ft across in one section where its rumoured that a red coat leaped across an opening in the gorge (below - called the soldiers leap) when fleeing from the Jacobites. 
Syd checked it out at the edge and thinks it may be possible if one had a running start at it (which presumably the soldier did).We made a point to visit another castle this day, called Menizes Castle – home of the Menizes (pronounced Ming-iss) clan for generations since the 16th century. Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed here in 1746 on his way up to the Battle of Culloden and there was a room where he stayed that was since renamed 'Charlie's room'.
This castle was really interesting as it wasn’t all completely furnished and felt medieval with all of its old cold stone, and cathedral wood ceilings. The top floor dining room had open cathedral type ceilings and we were all amazed at is beauty. The castle is a z-shape, which is typical of the time but rare for remaining castles of this age.At the end of the day we squeezed in one last event that I read in the guidebook and was itching to see - a prehistoric reenactment of history on the Loch Tay at the Scottish Crannog Centre. The strange structure you see below is called a Scottish Crannog and reminded us of the Iroquoian longhouses of North America, but cooler! A Crannog is a type of ancient loch-dwelling found throughout Scotland and Ireland dating from 5,000 years ago. Many
Crannogs were built out in the water as defensive homesteads and represented symbols of power and wealth.
By being a pyramid-type timber and thatch structure set on stilts in the water they made the best use of the loch trade routes, saved arable land for farming instead of building on the land, and for defensive measures they just lifted the drawbridge at the end of their structure. Pretty smart! The National Underwater Archaeological Society has done archaeological dives in the lochs around Scotland for 27 years, and have found over 100 crannogs at the bottom of the lochs. This crannog that they discovered and reconstructed is called the Oakbank Crannog and was so well preserved from 2500 years ago! The tour guide was so knowledgeable and passionate that we could have stayed and listened to his stories all night. This ended up being one of my highlights of the roadtrip and I'm so glad we made the stop!
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