News
Leith Spirits flooded with hand sanitiser orders
A DISTILLERY in Leith that gave away more than 15,000 bottles of hand santiser during just two months has now been inundated with orders for its gel. Leith Spirits, which paid £35,000 in duty to make the first batches of sanitiser, gave the initial runs to the police, healthcare staff and other key workers. Now,…
Read MoreDistillery buys Bonnie Prince Charlie’s island hideout
North Uist Distillery has bought Nunton Steadings on Benbecula, where Bonnie Prince Charlie hid following the Battle of Culloden. Master distiller Jonny Ingledew and creative director Kate MacDonald now want to turn the steading into a distillery and visitors’ centre. They want to make whisky from locally-grown bere barley, as well producing their Downpour gin,…
Read More‘Wellbeing manager’ sets sail on Fingal
FLOATING luxury hotel Fingal has appointed its first “wellbeing manager” as it prepares to reopen on 22 July. Mari-Nel Scorer will be responsible for ensuring that “overnight guests, and local diners, continue to enjoy a unique, luxurious and seamless experience onboard”. Scorer will take on the new role in addition to her duties as front-of-house…
Read MoreFilm follows the drovers’ trail through Perthshire
THE stories behind Scotland’s ancient drove roads are being told in a new film, which has been made to promote perthshiregravel.com, a guide to off-road cycling across Highland Perthshire. In the video, round-the-world single-speed cyclist Markus Stitz retraces the route used by cattle drovers from the Cairngorms through the Tay Valley to Crieff, which became…
Read MoreCharlie MacLean’s sons launch whiskies
SCOTCH expert Charlie MacLean’s sons have launched two whiskies to raise money for clean water projects in Madagascar. Just 168 bottles of MacLean’s Pillage, a blended malt, and 299 bottles of MacLean’s Spillage, a blended Scotch, will go on sale at 10am today at www.royalmilewhiskies.com and should bring in £100,000 for Argyll-based charity Feedback Madagascar…
Read MoreChris Packham launches Big Butterfly Count
TELEVISION presenter Chris Packham today launches Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count. More than 113,000 people took part in last year’s survey and the wildlife charity expects even more participants this year. Fine spring weather led to the earliest average emergences of butterflies for the past 20 years and Butterfly Conservation has received thousands of extra…
Read MoreScots dream of parks, history and Outlander as tourism and hospitality reopen
GARDENS, views and television series Outlander are just some of the themes about which Scots have been dreaming during lockdown, according to the early results of tourism agency VisitScotland’s #HameTownTourist campaign. As many of Scotland’s restaurants, bars and tourist attractions begin to reopen today, the marketing bureau has shared some of the social media posts…
Read MorePlaudits for precision potato predictor
FARMERS could produce more salad and seed potatoes thanks to a new way to predict the size of their crop while it’s still buried in the soil. The “Tuberzone” project used the global positioning system (GPS), satellite images, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor potato plants as they grew. It predicted the size of…
Read MoreSwimmer tells pupils to mix sport and studies
A SWIMMING champion has advised young people to combine sport with their studies during a visit to his old school. Tobermory Mackay-Champion, who hails from Clathy near Crieff, graduated from the University of Oxford this month with a first-class undergraduate master’s degree in earth sciences. He holds eight Oxford swimming records and is the British…
Read MoreWhisky casks go digital
RESEARCHERS at the University of Strathclyde have developed a computer simulation to help whisky distillers fill their casks without spilling any spirit. As well as the computer program, the engineers built a cask-filling test rig and achieved 99% consistency when filling a 200-litre cask in less than one minute. Inconsistent cask filling can lead to too…
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