As we crossed the Keswick Bridge into the rolling hills outside Inverness, green fields of early-spring barley still had months to grow until harvest. The grain will be sent to a nearby malting factory and eventually made into whisky at some of Scotland’s 150-plus distilleries.
Interspersed among the barley fields were yellow rows of flowering rapeseed, used to make cooking oil, and herds of grazing sheep that seemed to outnumber people.
