Back in London for 1 night

Our last full day in Scotland was awesome. We road the Scotland Tram out to near the coast to eat lunch and have a few drinks on The Water of Leith, a river near the Scottish coast. 

We did not go to McDonalds. 

Our first stop was Teuchter's Landing, a pub right on the river. We had intended to have a pint and eat some food but we were still full from our free hotel breakfast so we just had a pint. 

After our pint we went for a stroll. It's a really pretty area and far less crowded than old town where all of the real touristy things are. 

Apparemtly, there are enough things to slip on that they need two different warning signs. 

Our walk took us out to some piers we couldn't trespass on so we stood and watched a bunch of birds on a trash pile. It doesn't sound good to normal people, but birders love a good trash pile. 

Now this next part of the story may surpse you so sit down. We found a brewery!  Yep, there is often a brewery on the way to wherever you are heading. We stopped in and had a couple more pints. The beer at Moonwake Brewery was fantastic, the staff were friendly, and the vibe was awesome. 

We began to get hungry so we headed back to Teuchter's Landing for lunch. 

The next morning we caught our train to London. It was running 15 minutes late due to trespassers on the tracks. 

Because we were already late, on time trains tool priority. We ended up 29 minutes late to London, only 1 minute short of getting half of our money back. We did get half our money back for being 35 minutes late to Scotland. 

It's now Tuesday morning and we are preparing for our overnight ferry to Holland tonight. 

Mortal Kocktail! Pinball in Scotland

Today I lived my dream of playing pinball in Scotland!  Well my actual dream is to just play pinball, but I did it in Scotland today. The population of Edinburgh is approximately 550K and there are 13 documented pinball machines in the city. That makes the pinball machine per capita here in Edinburgh 1 machine for every 42,307, not good, but way better than London. 

Our pinball location of choice today is Mortal Kocktail, a video game themed bar. Mortal Kocktail is in a narrow alley in old town Edinburgh. It claimed to open at noon on Saturday but that was a lie. We got there right at noon. And it was still dark so we took a walk yo look for a cash machine and after failing to get cash we turned at about 12:20 and it was just opening.   

We hung out at the bar while the bartender turned on the pinball machines and pulled the chairs off the tables. I ordered a beer and Donna got a cider and we were sold 20 pound coins, which was nice. 

They had 6 machines were crammed into a place for 5. They were head to head with no room between. 

The games were 3 for 2 pounds here too, just like in London. They had Addams Family, Jurassic Park (Data East), Playboy (Stern), Game of Thrones (LE), Ghostbusters (Pro), and Uncanny X-Men (Pro). The machines mostly played well.

The arcade side had a handful of games as well. 

The beer selection was good and the vibe at noon was cool. A few others wondered in for beers after us. If you are in the area, check it out. 

Glenkinchie Flavour & Cask Experience

Today we rode a couple local busses for about an hour and 20 minutes and ended up at The Glenkinchie distillery. We had a cask and tasting tour booked and it ended up being a private tour (a noon tour on a Thursday on the first day of spring isn't in high demand I guess).  

The bus trip took us though beautiful countryside. It wasn't the fastest way to get there but it was enjoyable. 

Johnny Walker has been using Glenkinchie Scotch in their blends for over 100 years and now they are owned by the parent company of Johnny Walker like many of the distilleries in the area. 

we got to see a scale model of the distilling process. This model actually distilled whiskey during some fair in the 20s IIRC.  

Donna inspects the mill of the malted barley. We have been on many distillery and brewery tours and learn a few things each time. Today we learned that how finely the barley is milled affects the final product. 

This is where the fermentation happens.

The other thing we learned is that the yeast continues to change the flavor profile even after it is dead. Here, our guide Pascal, discusses the flavor profiles that happen as the yeast breaks down after it's death. 

The ageing barrels aren't stored here but they did have a few for display purposes as well as these four for us. Pascal uncorked them and allowed is to smell them. He talked about how Scotch can use all kinds of barrels and they each impart a different flavor. Next we were given a chance to thieve our own dram of whiskey!

At the end of our tour we were able to taste a selection of their whiskeys and a Johnny Walker.

It was a super tour.