That's the spirit as new whisky and gin shop set to open its doors
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Turriff's High Street welcomes a new retailer this week as Barrels and Botanicals opens its doors to the public.
For owner Mark Stephen, it marks a departure from the world of off-shore contracting, but builds on a life-long passion.
He explained: "After 24 years offshore as a logistics coordinator for various companies, I'd had enough and decided it was time for a change.
"I thought it was time to spend more time at home and see how things go.
"A whisky and spirit shop, with craft beer to me is something that Turriff needs and it is good to see a lot more shops opening up in the town as well.
"We're trying to keep the stock as local as possible, and while that's not so easy with the rums, with the gin we have the likes of Black Thistle from Brechin, Silver Glass and Esker from Banchory, House of Elrick from Newmachar, Teasmith from Udny, Vesperis from Rothienorman.
"It's the same with the craft beer selection, Brewtoon from Peterhead, Windswept from Lossiemouth and Thistley Cross cider from Edinburgh.
"Tonic wise everybody uses Flavour Tree, and we have from Walter Gregor in Pitsligo which is recommended from Harris Gin.
On the extensive whisky selection he said: "Obviously there is a wide range to choose from, including the signature from our local distillery at Glen Dronach, which I hope will sell on day one.
"The rest of the range covers the whole of Speyside, Highland and Lowlands and the Islands along with rest of the world items including Japanese which are proving popular.
"We are also holding some items, which are marked as private.
"Rather than putting bottles into auction and maybe not getting the right price, we'll take a bottle in a do a bit of research and sell them for them.
"For instance we've two special bottles from one seller from during his time in the Forties field, which are special bottlings.
"Our website is set to go live on Friday when we open and we will be looking to do tastings of the month which will start with Edinburgh Gin.
"We'll be open Monday to Friday 10am -5.30pm and Saturday noon till 5pm and opening on Sundays in December as well.
"When covid restrictions are eased we'll be looking to open up our tasting room as well which will be focused on a group experiences."
