Whisky, Family & Fishing Villages

We’ve come to Aberdeen for a special reason. A couple of years ago, with the assistance of DNA testing, we discovered that Marg and Neil’s great great great grandparents were John and Ann McKenzie. They emigrated from Aberdeen with their son Robert McKenzie (Marg and Neil’s second great grandfather) in 1861 aboard the ‘Lightning’ and settled in the area near Warrnambool. Robert was born in Fordyce in Aberdeenshire in 1804 and Ann (nee Mellis) was born just down the road in Alvah two years earlier. By the time of Britain’s first census in 1841, the McKenzies and their children had moved to Old Aberdeen to work in the mills. They lived in Gordon’s Mills Road. While visiting Scotland, we added Aberdeen so we could spend a couple of days walking in their footsteps in the places where they lived and worked.

In order to visit Fordyce, which is very small and is not on the tourist trail, it was necessary to find a tour operator who would allow us to tailor our own bespoke tour. In the same part of Aberdeenshire were two other places I was very keen to visit – a Victorian era whisky distillery and a small coastal fishing village named Pennan that was the location of one of my favourite movies, ‘Local Hero’. I searched the web for a tour provider who could include all of these places on one day, and I hit the jackpot when I found Aberdeenshire Tours. Click here to see the website.

Our tour guide for the day was Elizabeth, who runs the company. I initially sent her a wish list that had more dot points than could be squeezed into a single day, but she helped me pare it down to the essentials, and I’m grateful she did, because it turned out to be an ideal schedule and a memorable day. Elizabeth picked us up at our accommodation just after 8 am and we drove through Aberdeen and then in a north westerly direction to Huntly. We passed through green pastureland and leafy groves en route, occasionally passing what remained of the humble dwellings of crofters from days gone by.

GlenDronach Distillery was a good choice for a visit, because although it has passed through a number of new owners over the years, it has retained many of its traditional ways of making single malt whisky using equipment that in some parts of the process dates back to the foundation of the distillery in 1826. We were taken on a guided tour through the different parts of the distillery, but were asked not to take photos inside any of the buildings. I guess they have intellectual property to be protected, and they explained that the size and shape of their stills is unique to their brand and plays a key role in developing the special characteristics that are associated with their brand. That’s understandable, so unfortunately there are no photos of the old copper tuns or stills, but if you look very closely at the photo with all the windows in the set below you might be able to see a little of the stills.

The highlight of the tour was the tasting session with our guide John. Each of the three whiskies we tasted had been paired with a different handmade chocolate. The whiskies were great, and the pairing of fine single malt whisky with chocolate proved to be a winner. We had a fantastic time at GlenDronach and I came away with new understandings about the process of making whisky.

Not too far away we drove into Fordyce. It’s a small hamlet with just a few streets lined with stone cottages. We parked near the old kirkyard and cemetery. A lovely old guy got out of his van opposite us and stopped for a chat. He had a beautiful garden, which surprised none of us because the Scots really know how to work magic with flowers and plants. We asked him if there were any McKenzies still in the town, but he couldn’t remember any. The old church in the kirkyard was a really unusual shape and rather small. I wondered if there were parts of the original church that were no longer there. We found a couple of McKenzie graves, but the dates were after Robert and Ann and their children had sailed to the colonies. Some of the graves were really old, dating back to the 1700s, so we were probably looking at the graves of people who knew Marg and Neil’s ancestors well. Fordyce, as I’ve mentioned, would never be accessible without having your own vehicle, so we were really grateful to Elizabeth for building it into our day tour.

We headed over to the coast on the North Sea, just a short distance from Fordyce. First stop was Cullen for lunch. When in Cullen, why not have a steaming hot bowl of cullen skink! Elizabeth, Neil and I ordered one each. Big chunks of delicate haddock flesh with potatoes and leek in a delicious soup, served with thick slices of bread for dipping. Yumm! A little further down the coast was Portsoy with its 17th century harbour. It’s recently become renowned for its ice cream, and deservedly so. The shop boasted that it served 120 different varieties. It was bloody good, believe me. And so was the music coming from a couple of guys trading licks nearby. These guys could really play, and at one stage Duelin’ Banjoes could be heard across the harbour. Scenes from Peaky Blinders were filmed here.

A little further down the coast, heading east, we drove through Banff, a larger fishing port. It also appears to have a good deal of charm, although it is larger than the other coastal towns we visited. The McKenzies were sometimes listed as being from Banff in documents I’ve seen.

Continuing east, we came to Pennan, the tiny fishing village from Local Hero. Elizabeth told us that it would be an interesting drive into the village, and it was! The narrow road dropped at a steep gradient and often turned back in on itself. There was only space for a single vehicle on that road and there was more than one blind corner. But Elizabeth handled it well – so much more confidently, and competently, than I could have. And there we were – in Pennan, a place I had wanted to visit ever since I first saw Local Hero.

The village is a single row of white cottages sitting between the pebbly beach and the steep cliffs behind it. Like Portsoy, it has a small harbour. Because the cottages have no back yards, their washing lines are across the road on the narrow strip that runs along the beach in front of them. In Local Hero, a business man is sent from the US to buy out the town so the oil industry can move in. But the longer he stays in the village and gets to know its people and its gentle way of life, the more he begins to question his company’s motives. When his boss, played by Burt Lancaster, pays him a visit, …. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what happens next. Two icons feature in key scenes in the movie – the northern lights and a red phone box. The red phone box is still there and we had a bit of fun with it today. I think we can blame Elizabeth for the ‘phone box stuffing incident’. Like so many Scots we’ve met, she has a wicked sense of humour. She had us laughing all day, making a great day even better.

We took a different, but equally scenic route back to Aberdeen. Although it was not included in the original itinerary, when Elizabeth heard the stories we shared about Marg and Neil’s McKenzie ancestors, she went out of her way to take us to Old Aberdeen, where we know they were living and working between 1841 and 1861. We stopped for a visit to St Machar’s Cathedral, where there’s a strong possibility they may have once worshipped, and we drove down Gordon’s Mills Road, where they once lived. Elizabeth was once a cop, and Old Aberdeen was her beat, so she knew exactly where to go. She even pointed out where the mill where Robert and John McKenzie once worked used to be.

It was a memorable day. Well satisfied with all we had seen and done we walked across to nearby Union Square and found a place to eat. While we were sitting down to dinner, my phone dinged several times. I opened WhatsApp to discover a whole lot of wonderful photos Elizabeth had taken for us and sent through to me. That was the icing on the cake. If you’re ever in Aberdeen with a day to spare, find Aberdeenshire Tours and book a tour with Elizabeth. You won’t regret it.

A special thanks to Elizabeth for taking a number of the photos I’ve posted on this blog and for her kind permission to use them.