• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

Make your own whiskey blend at Glengoyne Distillery.   (Photo: Courtesy of Glengoyne Distillery)

Stroll down Main Street in nearby Callander, a village filled with diamond-paned shop windows and gray stone church spires. Sustainable, line-caught catch of the day is cooked to order at MhorFish, a fishmonger and café. Afterward, stock up on retro favorites at the Old Fudge Shop, a Wonka-esque candy store filled with lemon sherbets, macaroons, and Edinburgh Rock, a popular hard candy.

Learn about contemporary Scottish cooking with an all-day course at the Nick Nairn Cook School in Port of Menteith. Nairn is the youngest Scottish chef to receive a Michelin star; his classes cover everything from knife skills to creating nouveau-Scottish dishes.

Head to the Glengoyne Distillery to try your hand as a master distiller. The single-malt nirvana, housed in a wooden glen of the Southern Highlands, offers a “Master Blender Session” ($50) where you'll create and take home your own blend.

Gather staples like home-baked scones and smoked trout from the nearby Stirling Farmers' Market (second Saturdays of the month) just southeast of Callander, then have a picnic lunch on the grounds of Doune Castle, a semi-ruined medieval relic just a few miles south at the confluence of the rivers Teith and Forth.

Published on Feb 11, 2010 as a web exclusive.