The Bold SPIRITS SPEYSIDE

Scotland's famed whisky region reemerges as a stunning epicenter of Celtic craft. Single malt in hand, writer Tracey Minkin joins gallerist and author Hugo Macdonald to discover its decorative arts bloom

I ARRIVE EXPECTING tartans, pipes, and single malts. I discover antler candelabra, couture kilts, and bud vases hand-turned from sweet chestnut, walnut, and yew. I presume a glorious, fixed tradition will greet me on a recent trip to Scotland; instead I step into a vibrant, evolving world of craft.

My journey is into the country's northeast heart: the river-threaded valleys of the Speyside whisky region and the neighboring heather-studded slopes of the Cairngorms and Grampians. As I travel from distillery to distillery, from workshop to atelier, from reimagined country house hotel to design-intensive shop, I witness a fascinating, very Scottish conversation of the maker with the material. And I learn that while bursting in a new bloom today, that conversation has marked the local approach to land, water, tools, wood, textiles, furniture, and yes, distilling for centuries.

"Scots have a deep-rooted sensibility of material power and potential that goes far beyond simple resourcefulness, Hugo Macdonald tells me. Macdonald is a design writer, curator, and an amazing discovery I make on our first day together-heir to the high chieftainship of the Macdonald clan (which in my mind adds a mistcloaked gravitas to his bona fides). But perhaps more to the point, he's also the cofounder with his husband, James Stevens, of Bard, a new and stunning gallery of contemporary Scottish crafts in Edinburgh. On this trip he's bespectacled, youthful Virgil to my inquiring Dante.

Single Malt with a Twist