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  • Hello there, I'm Sam Heughan, and today I'm going to be taking you all around Bonnie, Scotland.

  • Whilst travelling Scotland, you might hear Gaelic or indeed even some Old Scots, but here's some slang that we use day to day.

  • This is a beautiful word.

  • I like this word, stravaig, or if you are doing this, you are stravaigin.

  • One of my favourite bars in Glasgow is called Stravaigin.

  • It means to wander or to go for a wee stroll, normally in the hour before sunset, you know, the golden hour.

  • I love that one.

  • This is an easy one, ken.

  • Now, not everyone in Scotland is called Ken, but you'll hear it said a lot.

  • It's actually to know.

  • So, aye, I a ken.

  • Yes, yes, I know.

  • You ken?

  • Ah, very good.

  • A sassanach.

  • What is a sassanach, I hear you ask.

  • A sassanach used to be, a long time ago, a word for an English person.

  • From sassanachia.

  • It was a derogatory term for an English person.

  • It is now being used, partly due to my show Outlander, as a term of endearment.

  • But it basically means an outsider, someone not from these parts.

  • Old Reekie.

  • That's Edinburgh.

  • I think probably because it was a smelly old place.

  • They didn't have toilets in the old days, so they would literally throw it out the window.

  • And as they threw it out the window, you're... you're... whatever you've done in the bathroom, you'd shout, Gardieloo!

  • Which is basically, watch your head.

  • After a whisky tasting, you're probably feeling like you need a bit of scran.

  • You're a bit hungry.

  • You want some food.

  • Your scran.

  • Oh.

  • This is definitely what to do after your whisky tasting, and then you've had your scran.

  • You're then gonna go lie on your scratcher.

  • Your bed.

  • It might be hard to get you out of it.

  • These are good.

  • You found good ones.

  • Long may your lum reek.

  • This is a nice expression to say to someone.

  • Long may your lum, your chimney, reek or smoke.

  • Basically, I hope that you have a long life, and that your hearth is always burning, and yeah, long may your lum reek.

  • Ah, one of my favourite expressions, slanja.

  • Cheers.

  • You can say...

  • Which means even bigger.

  • Bigger cheers.

  • Now, if you're gonna go on a wee road trip around Scotland like I did, in men in kilts, you might get hungry.

  • And actually, these ones here, I'm quite fond of.

  • This is a Tunnock's Caramel Wafer.

  • Tunnock's are this old Scottish company.

  • Our wafers are pretty damn good.

  • A layered caramel, wafer-y, biscuit-y thing.

  • Delicious, as you can see.

  • Ah, fabulous.

  • Thank you very much.

  • However, they also make a Tunnock's Tea Cake.

  • It's a round dome, chocolate-covered, wafer bottom, and the inside, marshmallow.

  • Incredible.

  • You can bite the chocolate off, suck out the marshmallow, eat the wafer on its own, or just shove it all in your gob.

  • It'll keep you going for a while.

  • Delicious.

  • Next from Edinburgh, we have Edinburgh Rock.

  • Now, I think rock is all over Scotland, and all over the British Isles, actually.

  • No, it's not the stone that Edinburgh Castle is built on.

  • And if you go to see Edinburgh Castle, you'll see it is built on this amazing stone.

  • And actually, in Edinburgh also is Arthur's Seat, which is an old part of a volcano.

  • Now, most snacks in Scotland are essentially sugar.

  • So once you've had a few of them, you're buzzing.

  • But as you can see, it's very hard, very tough.

  • And it's essentially just pure sugar.

  • Ah, the shortbread.

  • Now, Scotland synonymous with shortbread.

  • We love it.

  • Walkers.

  • Wheat flour, butter, sugar, sugar, and salt.

  • Delicious.

  • There's also another famous Scottish snack called tablet, which is essentially sugar.

  • And I think condensed milk, and it's all reduced down, and it hardens into something similar to rock.

  • I'm not sure why the Scots love sugar so much, but hey, it keeps us going.

  • And actually, speaking of sugar, here we have possibly, apart from whiskey, one of the most famous Scottish drinks.

  • Now, in all around the world, Coca-Cola is number one.

  • In Scotland, no, no, no, no, no.

  • Iron brew.

  • A wee can of ginger.

  • We don't know why it's ginger.

  • I can't tell you what it tastes like.

  • There's not a single taste like it in the world.

  • The ingredients are basically sugar, citric acid, some sort of flavorings, and more sugar.

  • When Iron Brew tried to reduce the sugar in their recipe, there was a public outcry in Scotland.

  • The best thing for a hangover, a wee can of ginger, and maybe a wee tonic's tea cake.

  • Delicious.

  • It's made from girders, apparently.

  • Made from what?

  • Girders.

  • I don't know.

  • If you're gonna come to Scotland, there's one thing you must do, and that is, of course, you must sample the water of life.

  • Iskabah.

  • That is whiskey.

  • Different regions have different types of whiskey.

  • There's a small island here called Islay.

  • All the whiskeys come from Islay are predominantly smoky whiskey.

  • That's because they tend to smoke the barley with peat.

  • Peat was used to keep houses warm way, way back when they burnt that.

  • It was like a sort of form of coal.

  • It would keep you warm, but it'd also smell pretty badly.

  • A lot of the whiskeys around here, Speyside, tend to be lighter, more sweet.

  • Could be down due to the water there.

  • And Lowland Whiskey's having a sort of resurgence, really.

  • For many years, they haven't really been at the forefront of Scottish whiskey, but they're making a comeback.

  • My own personal whiskey, the Sassenach, I can't really tell you where it's from because it's actually three different distilleries.

  • If you're in Scotland and you visit one of its many, many distilleries, you might have a wee whiskey tasting, which is, come on, let's face it, the best part of visiting a whiskey distillery.

  • You'll be greeted by the proud owner and they might pour you a wee dram, a wee dram, a wee shot, but it isn't a shot.

  • So when you go in there, don't just hammer it back as much as you really want to.

  • And you're probably desperate for one after having walked around the distillery for a few hours.

  • Oh, what you will have smelt when you're walking around is maybe the barley or the spirit.

  • The angel's share is what they like to call it.

  • It's the spirit evaporating from the barrels.

  • Well, the first thing to do at your whiskey tasting, you'll probably be given a glass like this.

  • This is a Glencairn glass.

  • You can try whiskey from other glasses, but this one's been specially designed so then it captures the aroma and makes it easier to sample the whiskey.

  • Oh, oh no, my God.

  • When you're smelling the whiskey, do give it a smell.

  • You'll find that you might be able to pick up more notes.

  • And on this, I'm getting butterscotch and honey, earthiness.

  • It's delicious.

  • Maybe give it a swill around.

  • You can see how strong it is from the legs.

  • Similar to wine tasting, you'll see if the alcohol volume is quite high, it'll produce these legs that slowly drip down the glass.

  • You might want to check the color of it.

  • And then of course, the tasting.

  • Don't drink it all at once.

  • Have a wee sip.

  • Let it sit on your tongue.

  • Swallow and see how long the finish is, what flavors come out.

  • You can't go wrong.

  • And honestly, if it's too strong for you, it is a good idea to add just a wee dash of water.

  • The water also helps open up the oils in the whiskey.

  • And when you do that, you might find there's a lot more flavors come out, a lot of the higher notes, a lot of the aromatics, a lot of the floral notes, especially when things are bottled at a higher strength.

  • A lot of whiskeys in Scotland are bottled at cask strength, which is anywhere between 40 to 50 to even 60%, which is pretty fiery stuff.

  • This one here, 46.

  • I like a bit of alcohol.

  • Cheers.

  • Now, if you didn't know, Scotland is part of the British Isles.

  • It's at the north of England.

  • You can see England just down here, but we don't want to talk about them.

  • They're not very important.

  • So this is Scotland.

  • The Highlands, the Islands, Central Belt, the Lowlands, and then going further up here, Shetland, which is the most furthest part of Scotland.

  • The original people that lived here were the Picts.

  • And in fact, a lot of the people from Shetland believe they're not Scottish, they're Scandinavian.

  • Over here, somewhere behind my head, the Scandinavians are the Vikings.

  • They took over a lot of Scotland.

  • So a lot of the place names, especially in the East Coast, have actually got Scandinavian names.

  • And we use, in Scots language, a lot of Scandinavian words, like, for instance, Bairn.

  • Bairn is a child.

  • Over here, Lewes and the north of Scotland and the Highlands, very remote.

  • Not many people live up there, but people do.

  • And most of them do speak Gaelic.

  • Gaelic is similar to the Irish Gaelic, different pronunciations, but it is a very, very similar language.

  • That actually comes from the Gaels, who were originally from Ireland, that came across.

  • I think if you go to Scotland, it's a very romantic place.

  • It's tangible, the history there, you can see castles and battlefields.

  • And I don't know, it sort of conjures up a great romance.

  • So it's hard to not fall in love with its landscape.

  • One of the best things to do is to hire a car.

  • Remember, you're going