Day 8 (September 21, 2025): Oban

Procrastination and Whisky

(by Luzie, Ffion and Rain)

Our day began much later than yesterday, well … for some. Our class was divided into two groups for today's activity. The first group got up and walked to Oban's distillery at 10:15 while the lucky group stayed in the comforts of their beds a little longer, except for the brave who decided to go for a morning run along the shores of Oban. Then, an hour after the first group, it was time for the second group to wander into the world of whisky production. Our nice tour guides showed and taught us the Scottish way of producing whisky from the very beginning of the barley grain to whisky hitting your local liquor store shelves. First the barley arrives at the distillery and get sorted and prepared, after that it gets “power washed” and filtered for 9 hours from 6AM until 3PM. Then the molten barley gets repurposed for animal feed among other things. The liquid that comes out of the power wash gets mixed with yeast and put into five-meter-high barrels and sits there for four days. Then the semi alcoholic liquid, that is closer to beer than to whisky, gets put into copper tanks and gets distilled. At this stop our tour guide also mentioned that whisky is thought of as liquid gold for Scotland: if Scotland were to sell all their whisky stock right now, they would have more money than the gold that the English bank has in total. Then the distilled liquid rests in wooden barrels or casks for 14-18 years. During that time some of the liquid vaporizes into the air. This is called angel’s share because it's as if one was sharing the whisky with the angels above. During our tour the “adults” got to try three different whiskies. “The children” watched them grimace and try to swallow their drinks. All Oban whiskies except of one show four flavor pallets (sea salt, honey, orange peel and smoke). In the first of the whiskies the orange peel flavor dominates. This whisky is said to be usually drunk with your very own breakfast porridge called “little bay”. The second was a sweeter whisky in taste called “the distillery's edition” or “the Christmas whisky” going more into the direction of the honey flavor. The third and final whisky we got to taste was “the Oban 14” which leaned into the smokey flavor pallet.

 

 

After the tour we went our separate ways, some went to purchase scarves at the local gift shop while others went grocery shopping or returned to the hostel to cook lunch. 

The afternoon was filled with card games, freestyle rap sessions, procrastinated packing, doing “pre-shower” make up (2020 make-up if you know you know), even more scarf shopping, talking in the “sauna” room (not actually a sauna but it was very hot), going for a peaceful stroll up the mountain (more like hill but it felt like a mountain) to bewander Oban from birdseye view and explore the half built colosseum or McCaig's tower and watching the sunset whilst eating dinner. It was a nice change of pace because before we had action-packed days filled with activities, guided tours or restaurant trips. It was one of the first and only afternoons that we got to spend more than three hours doing what our hearts desired.  

Overall today was more “the calm before and after the storm” (the trip to Edinburgh tomorrow and the Ilse tour yesterday respectively). Now the only program we must complete for the day is to stop procrastinating on packing our stuff and sitting on our suitcases to get them closed with the amounts of scarves and socks and books we purchased, get the room to look semi-clean and get ourselves to bed at a reasonable time.