The Pub at the End of the Earth | The Great British Pub Ride Day 13

Getting seriously close to the finish now and what a day this was!

We rode through some of the most remote parts of the trip so far. Quiet roads, wide skies, and views that made us want to stop constantly… so we did. We saw deer, rabbits, eagles, rivers, lochs, and got some cracking drone shots today.

We’ve basically been cycling away from our problems for two weeks now, and weirdly, it’s working. Still got to face them when this is over, but we’re in a better place to do that now.

We passed Balblair Distillery and had a good chat about Highland whiskies. Also gave a nod to Glenmorangie (@glenmorangie), Isle of Harris Distillery (@isleofharrisdistillery2981), and Nc’nean Distillery (@ncneandistillery7462) later in the video. Tom’s whisky knowledge got put to the test.

Oh, and we accidentally left our tracker in the last hotel… Paul had to double back and retrieve it. Oops.

Pub stops today were brilliant:
🍻 Invershin Bunkhouse & Bar – amazing hospitality and a surprise sticky toffee pudding.
🍻 The Crask Inn – the most remote pub in Britain. Met American Shane, who’s one of the best pub people we’ve come across.
🍻 Farr Bay Inn – finished the day with a beautiful sunset and a feeling like we’d made it… even though we’ve still got one more day to go.

One more day, one last push. Next stop: John O’ Groats.

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0:00 – Dramatic drone shot intro
0:56 – Ben phones home
3:30 – Balblair Distillery & Whisky chat
9:08 – Insane Highlands views
10:08 – 🍺 Invershin Bunkhouse & Bar
11:46 – Into the wilderness
12:43 – Losing our tracker 😬
13:45 – 🍺 The Crask Inn
17:55 – 🍺 Farr Bay Inn
18:34 – Onwards to John O’ Groats!

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#thegreatbritishpubride #greatbritishpubride #tandembike #longlivethelocal #mandemontandem #pubtopub #highlands #scotland #whisky

[Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hello. What’s going on, boys? Well, I was just ringing to to have a chat with you all and tell you about where I am on the day, but but well, I’m in place called Betty Hill, which is at the top of the country. I’ve made it to the top, and now we just have to go right. We’ve got 50 miles to go tomorrow. And we had an amazing cycle ride through the Highlands today. It was beautiful. And it was about 80 mi. And we stopped off at a pub called the Krasin, which is the most remote pub in Britain. It’s in the middle of nowhere. Remote means there’s nothing around. It’s it’s it’s further away than from any town or village in any other pub. And it was run by a a a preacher, an American priest who was very nice. And um it was spectacular. And and so we’ve we’re we’ve got one more day to go and it’s 50 mi. We did 80 mi today. So tomorrow is going to be a shorter day. And then I fly back the day after and see you all. So we’re we’re feeling very tired, but very good. Very good. And it’s beautiful up here. Amazing beaches. We saw deer and uh rabbits and eagles and lovely streams and rivers. Wonderful things. Yeah. But I’m missing you all. I can’t wait to get back now. Okay. That’s lovely to hear. Now, Remy, um, please don’t be upset by all this, mate. Just, you know, it’s just a thing that will pass. Okay. We’ve been we’ve been cycling away from all our problems and now I suppose when this finishes we have to go and face them all. Well, I feel in a better place to do that. Do you? Yeah. Yeah, probably a better person. [Music] See it? Let’s record if it’s visible. Just going past Balbear Distillery. on day 13. There’s the sign balair and don’t know much about Barbar, but what a few great I’m sure you think about added. Well, we’re up in the highlands now. So, when it comes to Highland styles as a rule generally, they tend to be a bit lighter. You got people like Glenn Morangi up here and that’s how you pronounce it. Glen Morangi, not Glenn Morani. Uh so tallest tallest steers taller stills. Yeah. And uh just a lighter style. So if you don’t like really rich sweeter styles or you don’t like the PT island ones, you can come for something like Bal Bear. Uh it’s um yeah it’s I mean it’s not as it’s not as well known as some of the other giants because obviously Glen Morani perhaps the most famous of all the Highland whisies is famous because they’re owned by LVMH and have much more significant marketing budget. Yeah. But that’s okay. You know I like the smaller. It’s only the experts who can tell you specific details about that that actual distillery. Well, yeah. There are people in the industry who would, I suppose, profess to be absolute scientific experts of the distillation process. I’ve never professed to be that. What my what my contribution to the whiskey industry about my my contribution my contribution to the whiskey industry, Ben, is broader. I accept that. I am I’m from a broad church. I am would never do that. I I would never do that because that would put us both in jeopardy and I’m not that kind of guy. Wait a minute. It’s still saying tomatonian tomatin from yesterday where I didn’t know about that one as well. So the balair at least say it right. Well yeah I’m not keeping quiet. Can you see it? Can can you can can you see it? I can’t actually see it. Well, it’s you know it’s very coast very few underground distilleries. It’s very coastal. I know it’s coastal. Cuz I can see the sea. Salty. Yeah. Oh, it’s on the doornock f. What? On the doornock f. We were actually talking about doororknock and the whisies from here with um who are we talking about? That actually is true. So, okay, that’s where we are. I mean, I’ll be honest with you, mate. You talk about me not going into specifics, but Bal Blair take a lot of time talking about things in a very general way. Yeah. I’m writing that it’s a Highlands malt. Uh, it sits on the ancient Pictish gathering place, giving it an intriguing mystical feel. Again, does it again? Does it really? Again, though, I mean, this is waffle, isn’t it? I’ve never had I’m not having a go at Bal Blair. I’ve actually had some of their whiskey and it’s nice. But uh they use black ale barley. Okay, that’s good. Uh open laid water that flows down the Editton Hills. That’s good. So that is quite a natural resource and gives it a local specificity. Well, you’ll love this. Listen to it. Tropical and mature with the texture of melted chocolate. And one of the finest finishes a single malt can bring. This stunning whiskey calls for quiet admiration. Round and velvety yet developed and fresh. Smoothed over by time, but with a beating heart. What? Belair, we’re coming for you. We’ve got some ideas about how to describe whiskey. And they’re better than that cuz that’s just like what a load of waffle. But I’m sorry. Don’t want quiet admiration. You want if you want to go [ __ ] me. And also I want to be in a party. That’s the whole thing about sitting in a bloody leather armchair doing some quiet. That’s the whole point. I want to be in a pub with my mates having a laugh drinking whiskey. Quiet admiration. Yeah. I mean I really get the tropical freshness that goes with the chocolatey rounded smoothness. Yeah. They’re two entirely different flavor profiles in one whiskey. Yeah. What is it? I’ll tell you what it tastes like. Whiskey. All right. And a good whiskey cuz I’ve had it and it’s nice. Sorry Bal Blair. We picked on you there. But everyone’s the same. Come on whiskey guys. And that is the problem really. Everyone is saying the same stuff. Not everyone. There are really innovative new people working in the industry doing interesting blends and crazy bits and bobs and trying trying to ignite the imagination of this whiskey because I think people just associate it with this landscape. Uh cold cozy pubs and weather and stag. Yeah. Okay. We’re coming to a lock. All right. This is amazing. We’re filming it. We are filming it. We’re filming all of that. I don’t think it is. It could just be another I can’t read it. Let’s just enjoy it. Yeah. Wow. Look at this. Oh my god. Look at that. The woman in um the commercial in said you will get the view if you go this way. And that is the view she was talking about. Wowee. [Music] Beautiful. Ride or die, we’re heading to the Inishing Bar and Bunk House. [Music] Hi. Hi. How you doing? All right. Yeah. Good. Day 13. Debbie, Daddy O’s. Yeah. The best I think the my favorite day of the trip was yesterday. Our first stop um the Invashin Hotel, Funk House, and Bar. Yeah. And it was it was a beautiful Angus and place. Angus and Cheryl greeted us with some extraordinary hospitality. They gave us a a sticky toffee pudding. We They said, “Would you like a bit of cake?” We said, “Yeah.” And they gave us an actual pudding with ice cream made by Ben, their chef. Thank you. That is not That is not what we were expecting, Ben. Blime me. That’s actual pudding. And it was delicious. And the hotel itself is fantastic. It’s um they’ve done it all up. They took on a rickety old building and um and created a sort of bunk house hotel set up for a lot of cyclists, bikers, people traveling through that region. Uh they were lovely people and their little pub that they’ve got attached to the whole thing is a real pub. They were saying they they close it during the winter um because there’s just not the trade, but then they open it every once or twice a month because otherwise the locals would just go mad. And one of the best things they had there was they had a pool table and Angus had got his family tartan and used that as the bays. Yeah. Which is I imagine if you’ve had a few pints would freak you out. I would highly recommend doing the bike ride we’ve done, which we can give you the route to, and going and staying there. And then we set off from there uh on a fairly long leg into the actual wilderness. And Cheryl said that before we went, she said, “From here on in, you think you’re in the wilderness now. Wait till you get out there.” And and and she was not wrong. It was absolutely insane. There was nothing out there. Unbelievable. It’s like being Well, we kept stopping going, we got to stop here. There’s a bridge there. Look, it’s overlooking it. Let’s go look at that bridge. cuz there’s this beautiful river uh streaming streaming down rolling down and we jumped up and down the bridge like the Goonies. Uh and then we got back on the bike and then we stopped again to do it and then after a while we’re like when they we can’t just stop everywhere and then we hit this amazing stretch of like Luna landscape. It was like yeah sort of like it was very American wild west. There was there was a single house in the middle of it which we later discovered was owned by a woman called Margaret who’d been living there for years. Uh and that was it. It was it was it was a very strange feeling. It did feel like we were in a Wild West film or something. It was around that point that we we realized that we’d left the tracker in the first hotel and Paul who wanted to do lots of filming wanted to find us had to drive back. To be fair though, because it was a tracker, he knew where it was. Um, we need to check the tracker. Oh, we left it in the You’re going to have to the back path and make sure it’s in there. And if if it is in there, which I’m pretty sure it is in there. No, we left it in the [ __ ] pub. Densson was in the background going, “I can find it. I can see it’s Yeah. Yeah, it’s in the last hotel.” And the only disappointment there was it wasn’t in Densson’s pocket. We lose things. They’re just in his pocket. You idiot. How far back is that? Yeah, that’s fair. Sorry, mate. [ __ ] Paul was then playing catchup a bit, but he still managed to get a drone out and get some brilliant shots of that that landscape as we cycled up to the Krasque in. [Music] If you were to describe an American guy with a religious background from Alabama taking over a pub, you’d probably paint a picture of someone completely different to shape. Thanks for having us. We’re just hearing a story of how you’re here. Yeah, I love it. But the best to anything like it. We were saying you go to Pets the Lakes down in England and you know, it’s just nothing like this in the UK. It’s just this astonishing piece of hard work. Thank you. We’re so new. We’re just benefiting from the glory. Oh, look, man. You’ve been well it doesn’t say you’ve been incredibly hospitable. He was just such a wonderful host. He he he was engaged, interesting, hospitable, knew his whiskey, knew the best pub people we’ve met. We cled past the B Blair distiller. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, we were a bit we were a bit unkind and and Bal Blair certainly didn’t deserve our Well, no, it was more taking a mickey out of you really cuz Tom is a keeper of the quake, which means he’s a mass but he’s also supposed to be a whiskey expert and he is but so we pass this distillery so I put him on the spot say so tell me a bit about Belair and then there was a bit of silence I could see him tapping on Google. But that’s when you do the like, oh, you know, Bair, they’re a Scottish distillery in the Highlands. They taste kind of like oak and fresh summer’s day and you just sell them on Yeah. That’s almost what was on the website. So when I was going through, it’s like a whiskey that’s been aged in a barrel. Yeah. It’s referred to another Highlanders whiskey that I knew more about. Yeah. Talk about another one. Glenn Morangy. Yeah. I can tell you about that one. that. Okay. So, climb leash. Exactly. It was like that. It was just a really nice It was Dory again. Again, another place that I’d love to get accidentally logged in on a winter’s night. Example, she is she is an absolute legend. She’s a legend of the industry. She’s literally passing through like I sent an email on like 10:00 at night cuz I was like, I can’t forget to send an email. And at 10:00 in the morning, she stopped by really to be like passing through. I was in there again. I just thought I’d bring some samples by and I was like so that’s amazing isn’t it and real like all the energy going into just that organic you know be cool doing everything properly and she’s and that and that is fresh you know that is a different language they’re using different perspective and you can’t change the laws of it’s lovely and fresh but you can change the way we talk about it how we bring new people into it and this is I mean this is a beautiful one of my favorite distilleries Yeah, their goal is community. So, it’s how can we employ more locals? How can we have this benefit locals? It’s not just how can we use this land and resources to make shed loads of money. It’s how do we make this historic craft in a way that honors the people who live there. How can we get after the people like means a native to Harris? I think if he were my local church, I’d be a lot more likely to go to it. And he had Lucky Saint up there, which as he pointed out was about the most appropriate brand of beer he could be serving. Crossing is serving up Lucky Saint. Do you like Lucky Saint? Oh, it’s the best. Yay. He was just a really lovely bloke. He was a really great kid. Yeah. In fact, he’d taken the kids to school. He gone and picked them up and he’d seen us on the road twice going there and back. So, he realized how late we were and how long we were going to be before we got to him. That’s brilliant that it exists since 1815. I mean, that is astonishing to keep it going as a pub for long. It was a great place, great people, great pub, a pub person at the end of the planet. Felt a bit like that. Yeah. And then, but then we had to sort of go, we we couldn’t linger because we had another 3hour bike ride to here. I have to say it felt like we’d done it when we got here. Yeah, boy. Omg, that’s the sound of a pile. Oh god. Going sideways and we are going a bit further north, but it really felt like we’d achieved it when we got there and the sun was setting and it was just such a beautiful moment. We almost cried. Uh and certainly in terms of the distance of one end of the land to the other, we’ve we’ve kind of achieved that. And today today is just a bit more of a sort of easy ride. Complacency kills. It’s nearly midday and we’ve got to get to our last. Can we go now? We’ve got four pubs to get to mate between there and now. Anyway, um well done everyone. It’s not finished but almost. Yeah. Over and out. Bye. Heat. Heat.

The Pub at the End of the Earth | The Great British Pub Ride Day 13

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