Holiday Haul - West Coast of Scotland

I thought I would round off my blogs about travelling on the west coast of Scotland with a little haul.  I try not to buy too much stuff these days when I travel anywhere, especially those little trinkets that are supposed to 'remind' you of your travels, but I do like to look for local products that I can actually use.

So, let's start with the whiskey.  After all, you can't travel to Islay and Jura and not get some whiskey - that would just be sacrilegious.  We had decided not to have a tour of the Jura distillery as we only had one day there, but we did visit the shop.  I couldn't decide which whiskey to get so I plumbed for getting 'The Collection' which would allow me to try all three.  

And, after our tour of the Caol Ila distillery where Dad and me made ourselves feel ill by testing whiskey at 10.30 in the morning, I decided to get their most popular 12 year old single malt.  Caol Ila usually make whiskey to mix, so it's unusual to find their single malts.  We also got a free glass after the tour, which is always nice.

I had been seeing these island specific toiletries all over the place and was interested in buying but hadn't been able to find anywhere that actually sold them.  They are made from very simple, natural ingredients, and each has a unique scent connected to the local area.  While in the whiskey shop on Jura I noticed that they were selling the Jura version and so I brought the hand cream.  It's been very effective on my dry hands and smells great (Jura whiskey 😉) and is in a glass bottle, but it's not a vegan product if that is what you're looking for.

While on Jura we also visited the Crackaig Textile Studio (run by Fiona McDonald) which had a range of products in the Isle of Jura tartan.  I really liked the colour mix, which are meant to have been inspired by the island's winter colours with the brown colour coming from natural plant dyes.  My parents brought me a scarf in the tartan for my birthday, but if you're hoping to get something of the same it's only sold on the island and you can't get it anywhere else.

I couldn't find anything in the craft shop on Islay I really wanted to get, but did buy a crafted wooden spoon made of ash which I assume I can use to eat with (please let me know if I can't) and some left over deer horns from when they make the buttons for the dog back home to chew on.  Loki loves this and it keeps him busy for hours.

I only brought a few more things when we were back on the mainland.  The first was a mug from the Sarah Berry Studio at Tayvallich.  I was thinking about getting one of the prints that she has, but I already have a number of pictures I still need to find a home for and decided to go for a mug that I can use daily instead.  I love the depiction of the otter in water and the money goes towards the Tayvallich school.

I was still looking to see if I could find anymore of those local toiletries, but there didn't seem to be any other stores that stocked them.  However, I did find some products from the Highland Soap Company, which I have been wanting to try for a while.  I didn't really feel that I need any shower wash or moisturiser but, as my partner prefers washing his hands with liquid soap instead of bar soap, I thought I would get the Aloe Vera Hand Wash in Hebridean Seaweed.  It smells really nice and hasn't had any drying effect on my hands at all, but it would be better if it was in a glass bottle rather than plastic.

The one thing that I had been looking for throughout my trip was either a flat or foxhound cap.  The plan is to use the cap to put all my hair into when I'm doing my traineeship.  I had been looking on Islay for the cap as it is famous for Islay wool, but I couldn't find anything.  However, while we were heading back down to Glasgow to stopped off The Village Rest at Luss on Loch Lomond so get a warm drink as the weather had turned pretty cold.  There was a little shop there all Scotland themed, as you would expect at Loch Lomond, and I found this hat for about £12.  It's not pure wool, but a wool / polyester mix, but I like the colour, the shape, and my hair fits in there fine.  It was also a good price to test to see if this will actually work for me.  If it does, I can always spend a little bit more later on.

I also got a comb for my partner (whose comb mad) from that shop with a fancy little cover.

And that's everything I got while away.  Had I been sensible I would have remembered to keep the prices so that I could have put those in, but I didn't think that I would be putting these in a blog at the time.