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f a l l 2 0 1 6 | 2 5 "It's a bit early in the season to go foraging, but I want to check the progress of the bog myrtle," explains Buley, a wiry Welshman who looks like the gamekeeper he once was. "We're two weeks behind." He stops to open a gate at the end of the road, and we park on the edge of an upland bog on the other side. "We don't own the property," Buley says, "but in Scotland, you have the 'right to roam' on private rural land, so long as you don't disturb anything." The bog itself does not shelter pools of water like its lowland kin, but instead is blanketed by sphagnum moss, a sponge-like plant that soaks up moisture. Below the moss just a few inches is peat, a condensed biomass that still gives Scotch whisky—the predominant spirit produced in this region, including at Buley's Balmenach Distillery—its signature smoky flavors. The myrtle is not yet in bloom, but Buley strips off a few leaves and rubs them together in his hands, releas- ing a lovely herbal fragrance. He points nearby to a small tree, a rowan or mountain ash, whose berries will also be foraged later in the summer. Rowan berries and bog myrtle are two of what Buley calls "my five Celtic ingredients" for his Caorunn botanical brew, the others being heather, growing in a field beyond the bog but not yet in bloom, dandelion leaves and Coul Blush apple, an heirloom variety that survives in the Highlands. During the season, Buley forages the fields around his distillery—now nearly 200 years old—about every two weeks, always just before a distillation, usually a 1,000-liter batch whose base is pure grain spirit. There they are added to juniper and five other traditional gin flavorings and spread about three-quarters of an inch thick across framed screens. The screens are inserted into a copper berry chamber, an exclusive to Caorunn, for vapors to pass through. Although his ingredients are all known, the proportions of each botanical used are Buley's secret. "Now that we've started foraging local ingredients, other distillers are beginning to forage," he grouses. As we make our way back to the truck, Buley lets me in on another secret. "If the wind was blowing today, we would be watching our feet for adders, the only poisonous snake in Scotland. They love to come out in the bog myrtle to sun themselves." But, back at the distillery, just one sip of Buley's fragrant, yet crisp, spirit makes me think that surely the gin justifies the means of his foraging, even if that entails watching out for snakes in the bog grasses. PHOTO COURTESY OF CAORUNN DISTILLERY PHOTO COURTESY OF CAORUNN DISTILLERY PHOTO: ROGER MORRIS PHOTO: ROGER MORRIS Distiller Simon Buley gets ready for another batch of gin by preparing botanicals for infusion. A melange of foraged botanicals is spread over screens for infusion at Caorunn's distillery. Fresh dandelion leaves add an herbal note to dried botanicals. Blooms from the Scottish heirloom apple, Coul Blush, will turn into fruit to flavor Caorunn Gin. ■cr