There are not many luxury hotels in the world, boutique or otherwise, whose restrooms are the star attractions and are eight miles away from your room, nevertheless, many guests never want to leave them.
Part of the joy of staying at Glenmorangie House on the north-east coast of Scotland, thirty miles from Inverness and the Black Isle, along with the views of Rosshire’s Moray Firth, is a visit (in many cases a pilgrimage) to the 1843 distillery twenty minutes away to taste straight from the barrel Dr. Bill Lumsden’s latest and oldest creations and spend some quality time breathing in the warehouses where his iconic malt “rest”.
Some people like the smell of ozone. For others, malt is their oxygen, but, although it has a determinedly exclusively £300 a night feel, you don’t have to be a whisky nut to stay at Glenmorangie House. You can be a lover of low-key luxury, bleak beach walks, wellies and Barbours, star-gazing, golf (Royal Dornoch isn’t far) open fires, tartan rugs, and swagging as well as John Dory, North Sea halibut, Orkney scallops and Highland venison dinners, haggis, and tattie scone breakfasts, hand-painted wallpaper, tawny marble bathrooms, deep armchairs, contemporary Caledonian cocktails, mixology masterclasses, and maximalist interiors; or, simply, like the idea of being piped into dinner every night by a red-faced kilted bagpipe soloist.
The LVMH-owned property, previously called Cadboll House, is now a six-bedroom country house hotel with three one-bedroom, “contemporary Scottish” cottages (called Cask, Malting, and Marriage) with the ruins of a 13th-century castle, orchard, and walled garden a few cabers toss way.
The seventeenth-century farmhouse has been well and truly “Gaged” with acclaimed designer, Russell Sage, tasked with “visually retelling the whisky story”. So you have a lot of barley colors and mellow ambers predominating.
The Reserve room depicts Glenmorangie’s 19-year-old reserve, which comes with pineapple-based lamps and a bottle with a message in it to remind you of being shipwrecked on a desert atoll. It is decorated not, in the traditional Scottish manner – with stages and thistles- but with toucans and baboons as a further tribute to the popular tropically-inspired Lumsden malt. There is even a tiger in your wardrobe. All very McRousseau.
Glenmorangie’s latest limited edition single malt is A Tale of the Forest made by an ancient method of kilning barley with heather, juniper berries, peat, and birch bark, it is best appreciated on the rural Royal Burgh of Tain, its birthplace. Contemporary Scottish hospitality is on tap. The Tale of the Forest experience is available to book on limited dates, priced at £1,200 (US$1,461) per room for a two-night stay in a Standard Room or Cottage. Double rooms from £260 in low season; rising to £330 in high. Breakfast included. Free Wi-Fi.
