Next, we tour the Glenfiddich distillery.  (The Speyside area, the heart of "The Scottish Malt Whisky Trail," contains several dozen top-notch distilleries.) 

The contrast with Cardhu could not be greater.  Whereas Cardhu was very small, Glenfiddich ("valley of the deer") is the biggest and highest-selling distillery in Scotland.  However, whereas Cardhu is owned by a multinational corporation, Glenfiddich is still owned by the Grant family, which founded the distillery in 1886.  As a result, things at Glenfiddich are done more traditionally.  Instead of being fully automated, Glenfiddich is manual, requiring hundred employees.  We saw workers rolling huge casks around and siphoning scotch from tank to tank by hand.   The tour guide refers to a chalkboard scribbled with gravity calculations as "our computer."  Whereas Cardhu has started switching to stainless steel fermenters, Glenfiddich insists on using traditional wood ones.  Cardhu casks are stored and aged around Great Britain; all of Glenfiddich's (significantly more) are located on site.  

We get to try samples of their 12, 15, and 18 year-old scotches; all are wonderful.