Why you should choose Inverness for a laid-back, low-impact summer city break

Timing is everything. Which is the best excuse I can give for why it’s not even 11.30am and we’re already propping up the bar at Uile-bheist Distillery with three beers and a whisky in front of us. “This only came in yesterday,” our guide Connor says as he pours a dram, “so you’ve chosen a great day to be here.” Resistance is futile.

Many distilleries start off making gin while they wait for their whisky to mature (Scotch has to do so for at least three years to be classified as such), but at Uile-bheist they’ve started with beer, which, when you consider that the two things are made from the same initial ingredients (barley, yeast and water), makes sense. The sleek, glass-fronted building here is mere steps away from the River Ness, which provides water not just for the drinks but for power – the on-site energy centre produces enough electricity for both the distillery and its adjoining hotel.

This is the first new distillery in Inverness in 130 years – and the first whisky tour I’ve been on where the good stuff hasn’t even been bottled yet. Though it feels rather audacious to be offering whisky tours when all they have is their (not-made-on-site) blended and a range of beers, the enthusiasm and honesty of everyone involved and the small size of the distillery gives Uile-bheist the feel of an energetic but unpretentious start-up; by the end of it, I feel as though I’ve been let in on a great secret.

And the beer’s fantastic: whether it’s the Ness water or because it’s been piped straight from the tanks to the bar, the five products – craft lager, pale ale, IPA, white IPA and stout – are all incredibly fresh and crisp. Best of all, Uile-bheist is fully committed to a sustainable model, so the spent grains end up back at the local farms where they were grown, as feed for the cattle. The company’s plans are very much about keeping things low-carbon, small-scale and Highland-based, rather than worldwide supermarket domination.

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Afterwards, we emerge – somewhat hazily – into the daylight and wander alongside the wide, shallow River Ness while seagulls squawk overhead, feeling every mile of the hundreds we’d put between us and London on the Caledonian Sleeper last night.