Cold Gin Time Again (Kiss-1974)
A little hard rock for those who can still hear. The live version at Madison Square Garden is a little different from the album but what do you expect after 20 years. Yes, it is cold gin time again. We drove to the McQueen distillery in Callander, a small (very small) town about 30 minutes away from Crieff. Beautiful day, party cloudy with temps around 580. Good drivin’ weather!
Today, the big thing in Scotland is gin bars and micro-distilleries. Lots of Mom & Pop shops opening up all over the Highlands specializing in unique distilled spirits. McQueen distillery was chosen simply because it’s close to our place. Pretty good choice.
The distillery resides on an old abandon farm in a couple of buildings that used to be feed & machinery storage. Getting there is a real adventure. The last miles or so is a single lane road with no pull-outs so fortunately for us, we met the car coming out right at the entrance. Otherwise, someone puts it in reverse and backs up. Found a parking spot, pretty easy since we were the only ones there, and tried to walk (not run) into the tasting room.
We got there for the 2:30pm tour and tasting with time to spare so we had a little conversation with Laura, the receptionist, tour guide, historian, cashier and everything else that needs to be done, person. Very nice young lady, pleasant and extremely knowledgeable on gin and gin distilling.
At 2:30pm, we donned our safety vests, walked to the next building, which was an old equipment shed, put on a hair net (very flattering) and began the tour. So, when I said this was a micro-distillery, I meant a one-room distillery that covers the entire process from cleaning the bottles to case packing and palletizing. Guess it’s a short tour!
Bottle cleaner
Packing round table
Foil seal and label machine
Filler
Fun to hear about how Dale and Vicky McQueen (the owners) started this distillery in 2015 and have now out grown their facilities. Today production is maxed at 2,000 bottles a day, but with the expansion and new machinery that’s on order, production will jump to 2,000 bottles per hour! McQueen distillery is doing well. All this because one day, Dale and his wife decided they no longer liked their jobs and quit. Literally quit their jobs the next day, cashed in their pensions and ordered a still. This was before they even had a place to brew! Sounds like they made a good choice. Their gin has won awards at the San Fran World Spirits competition and at the World Gin competition (really?). Our favorite award was the one they received for their color changing gin. It changes from blue to pink once you add tonic water. According to Laura, the reason their gins have won awards and are different is because these are not flavored gins, instead they are 100% distilled with the botanicals.
Botanical hopper named after their dog “Little Maggie”
A new botanical hopper for the larger still named after their other dog “Big Doogy”
The new still
Old still
Yeah. So on with the tasting. Got to admit, they do have a good selection of flavors, citrus, mocha, chocolate mint, smokey chili and a super premium dry. We tasted all and settled on a couple that we liked, got out the wallet and brought some home. The tasting was pretty light so no fears about driving, except to get out without meeting someone coming in.
Made it back to the homestead in time for a glass of wine and a bit of relaxing before dinner. Fun day and met some really nice people. Good thing Collette didn’t have too much to drink and turn mean or start showing off her tattoos.
Going to St. Andrews and Falkirk tomorrow. That will be an all-day adventure so time to call it a day.
Slainte (Scottish Gaelic meaning Cheers)