A very expensive drop of Scotch

Driving through the pretty towns of Speyside, as I did last week, it’s hard to believe you’re at the centre of a booming global industry. As the road follows the course of the river into the Highlands, you can spot the chimneys of the distilleries every few miles. But they’re mostly small-scale and they still retain the look and feel of a cottage industry. At the picturesque Strathisla near Keith, with its traditional pagoda-style malting towers, pretty girls in kilts greet you at the visitor centre. At Glenlivet, I was given a guided tour by a former excise man whose job it once was to police the distillery. There’s tartan everywhere, of course, and cheesy bagpipe CDs in the souvenir shops to go with all the whisky paraphernalia.

But this quaintness is largely for show, for the benefit of the tourists who turn up each summer in their tens of thousands to follow the brown-signed whisky heritage trail.