Rosemary McClure travels Scotland, and lives to tell the tale

What better way to see Scotland than through the prism of several glasses of scotch? Our Rosemary McClure in this weekend's Los Angeles Times Travel section:

In Perthshire, about an hour's drive north of the Edinburgh airport, I tried to shake off my jet lag at the Gleneagles Hotel. Gleneagles is the kind of place where croquet wickets are a permanent lawn fixture and the valet wears a kilt. I skipped golf, tennis and the indoor pool to try my hand at falconry, a popular resort activity.

"Don't worry about his beak," instructor William Duncan told me. "Worry about his talons." Easier said than done when a Harris hawk's beady brown eyes are staring at you, its beak a mere 5 inches from your eyes. He was perched on my forearm, which was covered with a heavy leather glove. I leaned away from the hawk. "You don't look real comfortable," one of the other students said.

The hawk ignored me; he was well trained even if I wasn't. When I moved my arm in a sweeping motion, he flew away. When I put my arm back out, he returned to perch on it. "OK," I squeaked at the instructor, "you can take him now. He's a nice hawk, but I think I'll go play croquet."

If I needed a little liquid courage, I didn't have to look far. The countryside is laced with distilleries, and the next day, I visited my first, Cardhu, home of Johnnie Walker (www.discoveringdistilleries.com), said to be the world's largest-selling blended Scotch. Cardhu, set in a scenic rural area and surrounded by rolling green hills, was established in 1824 and is known for its sweet, smooth, mellow malt. I joined a tour, saw the pot stills where Scotch is created, tasted a bit, and then took a stroll outside. On a hillside nearby was a famous local resident, a highland cow, which looked up at me through its fringed bangs.