For lease: one square foot of Scottish soil.
Description: located on a grass-covered patch of peat bog near the Laphroaig whisky distillery on the Isle of Islay.
Duration of lease: your lifetime.
Rent: one dram of Laphroaig whisky, to be sipped only at the distillery.
All you have to do is buy a bottle of Laphroaig, register the purchase number found on the bottle at the distillery's website (www.
Laphroaig.com), and voila! You then become an official Friend of Laphroaig and will even receive a deed to your very own piece of Scotland.
Then when you visit the distillery, claim your rent, pop over to your plot, and plant the flag of your home country in the peat.
Just think of how impressed your friends will be when you tell them you own land in Scotland.
Slainte! Islay is also home to several other distilleries, and it is the windswept island, whose signature scotch tastes of smoke, peat, and salt, that is a good place to begin a liquid safari through Scotland.
"Scotch whisky is an industry within itself," says the Scotch Whisky Association's Campbell Evans.
"It is one of Scotland's biggest employers."
The figures, he says, range to about 25,000 who are directly employed in the industry, with another 10,000 indirect workers in sectors such as retail stores, bartending, and cask-making. That's quite impressive for arguably the world's most elegant spirit, but truthfully the process of making it is really not that complicated at all. "Whisky is the easiest thing in the world to make," explains Evans.
"It takes only three ingredients: water, yeast, and grain."
Maybe it's not that simple, but the alchemy of those three ingredients, blended with the sagacity of the whisky master and hundreds of years of experience and heritage, conducts itself into a liquid symphony of golden colours, crisp flavours, fragrant aromas, and sweet, creamy textures.
Each distillery produces its own distinctive whiskies.
Why? The primary building block of great single malt is Scotland's pure mineral-laden water.
The chemical makeup of water varies from one region to the next, so a Highlands whisky from the more mountainous north tastes much different from one from the islands such as Islay and Orkney.
The basic recipe is to malt barley in the water, dry it with smoke, mash it, ferment it with yeast, distil it, and then siphon it into oak casks for maturation.
Some of those casks previously contained sherry, cognac, or bourbon, each of which lends a unique flavour to the scotch.
Whisky matures slowly, so from the time it is casked, there it remains, soaking up the essence of the wood for at least three years and often for decades before it is bottled and sold. The history of scotch whisky begins with the ancient Celts.
They called their first batches uisge beatha, which means "water of life".
The earliest documented record of distilling entered into official records in the 1400s.
Fancy a wee dram in the place where it was created so long ago? Take an educational tour to one or several of the more than 40 distilleries open to the public. To begin your whisky safari, head to Islay and Laphroaig, which is reached only by ferry or a very short, slow flight from Glasgow - so slow, in fact, the pilot often opens a window and waves "go around!" to flocks of birds.
After you visit the distillery and plant your flag in the peat bog, take in the dramatic coastal scenery of the Outer Hebrides where spotting seals, puffins, and red deer along the shoreline is commonplace. In the far northeast corner of Scotland is Speyside, where about half of Scotland's distilleries are located.
Stop in at the renowned Glenlivet, owned by the Chivas Brothers.
From Speyside and into the Highlands, you'll pass through some of the most beautiful terrain in Scotland.
The green countryside is an amalgamation of deep lochs and snow-covered peaks of the Cairngorms. In the Highlands is Glenmorangie, where the scotch is crafted by the legendary Sixteen Men of Tain.
And there's Cardhu, home of Johnnie Walker and which is the only malt whisky to be pioneered by a woman.
The Macallan is here, high on a hill overlooking the River Spey.
Aberfeldy, home to Dewar's and a fun museum devoted to scotch, is surrounded by farmlands and natural beauty.
After sampling a dram in the distilleries, explore a castle or loch or even the two together if you take a cruise on Loch Ness to see the imposing ruins of Castle Urquhart, the perfect perch from which to search for Nessie.
Edinburgh Castle stands as a sentinel over all of Edinburgh, while Stirling Castle is probably the most historically significant castle in all of Scotland with ties to Robert the Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots.
If you like to have your spirits with spirits, the reportedly haunted Menzies Castle is near Aberfeldy.
Among the lessons I learned was that scotch can be frozen to a viscous consistency and paired with chocolate.
And I discovered it takes months to properly build a copper still - only copper pots are used for distilling - and it is such an intricate craft that is considered an art.
And did you know that the size and shape of a copper pot, like the water and casks, gives scotch distinct characteristics? But one of the most notable lessons among Scotsmen is one on which I'll probably take a pass.
"In Scotland," laughed a lad named Ian with a joking grin, "breakfast is the most important drink of the day."