Day 5: Elgin and Glenfiddich
Not having anything planned for Saturday morning, I decided to head up to the small town of Elgin for a bit of sightseeing. With a population of around 108,000, Elgin is the largest population center in Speyside, situated up near the coast not far from the mouth of the Spey. It’s about 15 minutes drive from Aberlour along the pleasant A941 (or as my rental car’s GPS pronounced it, the “A, 9, 4… 1!!!“).
The center of Elgin has a bit of a dual personality. I liked the smaller back streets with their interesting little shops much more than the pedestrianized and homogenized High Street. There’s one shop that the whisky enthusiast has to visit though – the home of independent bottlers Gordon and Macphail sits proudly at the corner of South Street and Culbard Street, as it has done since 1895.