Viva Dalwhinnie

Aye, but pleasures of a different kind here.

Dalwhinnie, the highest distillery in Scotland stands in an area steeped in history. The placename itself means 'meeting place', where cattle drovers and smugglers met on their way to markets in the south.

The same 15 year malt ersed by Sam and yours truly in Oz. Here we are near the spot where it's made.


Some more coincidental history. The fella and his wife who run the spot we were at on the Great Glen (Kilfinnan) are called Ian and Claire MacLachlan. He's in our clan! (or we're in his). Every man in the room when we arrived were in the same clan. .

Weird or what?

He gave me a brief run down of how Gilchrist Lachlan came to Scotland from Ireland 1,000 or so years ago and various incidents in the history of the name.

This from the early history....According to the Irish genealogies, the clan Lachlan, the Lamonds, and the MacEwans of Otter, were kindred tribes, being descended from brothers who were sons of De dalan above reffered to, and tradition relates that they took possession of the greater part of the district of Cowal, from Toward Point to Stacher at the same time; the Lamonds being separated from the MacEwans by the river of Kilfinan, and the MacEwans from the Maclachlans by the stream which separates the parishes of Kilfinan and Strath Lachlan. De dalan, the common ancestor of these families, is stated in ancient Irish genealogies to have been the grandson of Hugh Atlaman, the head of the great family of O'Neills, kings of Ireland.

About 1230, Gilchrist Maclachlan, who is mentioned in the manuscript of 1450 as cheif of the family of maclachlan at the time, is a witness to a charter of Kilfinan granted by Laumanus, ancestor of the Lamonds.


We were staying in a place called Kilfinnan!!!!!!!!