46 Whisky and Ceilidh

Canada
Québec & New Brunswick
Nova Scotia & Newfoundland
Québec & Ontario
Manitoba to the Pacific

32 Off to Nova Scotia
33 Whales, Digby Neck
34 Yarmouth and beyond
35 Through to Lunenburg
36 Lunenburg
37 To Halifax
38 Halifax
39 Halifax and Bluenose II
40 Halifax
41 Halifax Citadel
42 Fixing Morty
43 Greenwich & Stanhope
44 Charlottetown
45 Canadian Confederation
46 Whisky and Ceilidh
47 On to Broad Cove
48 Glace Bay and Marconi
49 Arriving in Newfndlnd
50 To St John's
51 St John's
52 St John's
53 Avalon Peninsula
54 To Twillingate
55 Rain to Rocky Harbour
56 Gros Morne
57 Vikings up north
58 Wind and ferries
59 Labrador

Canada

Havre Boucher to Cheticamp, Nova Scotia

Sunday 18 September 2005 (day 119)

Whisky tasting at Glenora

Well, if a tropical storm was due it must have taken a different route. It did rain and was a bit windy but nothing too hairy. Stef's plan of driving here last night so that we were early in Cape Breton did not quite work though. We probably made it across the Canso causeway at the same time as if we had stayed in Pictou. Ah well.

We stopped at Tourist Information to get up to date local information, in particular good places to go to for a ceilidh, and then headed up the west coast on route 19. The landscape here is noticeably different to the rest of Nova Scotia and I lost track of the times we said "ooh, this is just like Scotland" and it really is. I can understand why the Scots who left their homes after the Battle of Culloden settled here. Its rough and rugged, the fields are full of mosses and heathers and the forests stretch as far as you can see.

At Glenora we stopped off at the distillery, the only one in North America producing a single malt whisky. Set in a valley next to a stream it is an ideal location (they looked at eight other options before choosing this one). Initially founded in 1988 it took until 1990 before they were in production. The yeast and barley come directly from Scotland all prepared and ready to go so all they do here is add the water and then put the result through the distilling process. The distillery is not air conditioned so it only operates between mid October and the end of December to ensure that the air temperature is right and does not kill off the yeast. At this time they only employ seven people. During bottling, and when the distillery hotel is in full swing, they employ up to thirty five.

Government officials oversee the process to ensure that the final alcohol content does not exceed 80% proof and that there is no sneaky third distillation process. Once barreled, the whisky is left to age in an outside barn with no light, heat or any other artificial influences on its condition. Even in the middle of winter, the barrels are simply left in the snow covered barn with no-one around to ensure they do not go wandering off!

The tour we had included a tasting of their ten year old. Not bad, although I am no connoisseur. Last week they put on sale their first batch of fifteen year old malt and half has already been sold in the first week. They are small and plan to stay that way, it also means the whisky is expensive. In the bar we paid for a tasting of their eight, ten, fourteen and fifteen year old whiskies. For a little snifter of each we paid $30 which I thought was quite pricey. Not as bad as the cost of a miniature of the ten year old which was a staggering $15. Stef preferred the fourteen year old, I preferred the eight year old. It was amazing how different the taste was over the years, especially between the fourteen and fifteen year olds. The latter was much more syrupy and tasted of vanilla and apples (possibly due to the apple trees outside the barn in which it is stored while it matures).

After the distillery we backtracked a little to Mabou and the Red Shoe pub. This had come highly recommended to us as Ceilidh territory by Tourist Information. We had driven past it on the way to the distillery and it was empty. Now, about an hour and a half later, it was packed and we had to pay to get in! It was worth it though. The fiddler was superb, one of the best around the barman confirmed to us. There were no seats left so we stood at the bar to soak up the atmosphere and watch what was going on. For most of the time we were there it was just a fiddler and a pianist but a chap on a guitar also joined in later.

Mean fiddler

The barman, who has just come back from a couple of months in Ireland, filled us in on some of the details. We were impressed that people in the pub simply got up to dance all knowing what to do, when and how without even talking to each other about it. In the local area people meet for Ceilidh's almost every day of the week. They are usually just held in the local village hall. As such, they are all experienced at what they are doing. In the pub they had cleared the space of a few tables, just enough room for ten people to do their stuff.

At a Ceilidh, music is played in sets of three with each tune being faster than the last. They certainly picked up the pace and were whirling around all over the place. Most of the time it was groups of people dancing but in one set individuals simply got up and had a solo turn.

Not only was the Ceilidh here great but they were also doing superb food. It was packed all the time we were there and it had the air that this is the way the local people spend their Sunday afternoons. From a very elderly and white haired granny in the corner to young children all generations were here but it was probably those in their forties to sixties who were doing the dancing. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and all were having a good time.

Ceilidh'd out after an hour or so we then headed on further up the coast, passing through Inverness, to Cheticamp and the entrance to the Cape Breton Highland National Park. It was still windy but had for a while stopped raining. It was not long after we made camp that the rain came back though. What was good was that this was the first time in a while that we had got to a campsite relatively early in the afternoon so we still had daylight left. We both felt pretty knackered and snuggled up on the bed to watch a film before dinner.

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