Once again we rise to bright sunshine ! Todays events are just a short walk from Chateau SpiritofIslay , the first is Literally down the drive and along the road for a few hundred metres . Once again i'm doing the Monday Morning Tour of the Maltings , it's just a shame that last year some plonker ruined it for everyone and they aren't doing the usual food and a dram at the end . It was another interesting tour which i think any Malt fan should do to see how the Barley is malted on an industrial scale . It was nice to meet up with Patrick again , i even got to look at his newly purchased Limited Edition Port Ellen !

After picking up Mel , we headed along to The Old Kiln for lunch , as usual it was busy and while waiting for a table i relucantly had a dram of the 2008 Beist (need to find out if this is acually a 18yo now.....) . Once again the food was superb ( pan fried chicken in a creamy sauce with boiled rice) . At some point i had a 1975 from sherry cask 1375 thrust into my hand ( it's magical where these drams keep coming from.......) , which was very , very good . Iwould go a bottle of this but for the price ! On par with the 76's i think . It was nice putting another face to a name when Lee ( Newbie from the WM forum) introduced himself .

Every now and then i like to take a bottle "home" and try it at it's birth place , this year i took a Sigbeg 1967 30yo Cask 1140 , the 1967's are exceptional casks and this one is no different . I poured a dram on the pier (my favourite place for having one at the distillery ) and it was fantastic ! Picked up one thing here that i've never gotten at home and that was Dark Chocolate , after a while we moved to catch the Rays at the Barrel Chairs and by this time the dram was well down and it was incredibly smoky . Always been one to share drams with friends i gave Angus , Charles and June and of course the main man Mickey a try . No complaints from any of them.....infact Angus was still going on about it at the Nosing Ceilidh ! Charles and June were anazed and i think Mickey was shocked.......

In the Evening i left Mel in the Chateau and headed along to the Nosing Ceilidh , Had a beer with Ian Gray before entering in to battle to once again fail Miserably ! The usual candidate won , Anders , but it's a good chance to have a natter with the distillery people and catch up with old friends . Actually got to meet Willie (from the WM forum) at last who was at the festival with his brother in Law Malcolm .

Dram of the Day - A close thing today but the Sigbeg 67 just edged it from the 1975