Emma Macalister Hall
One of my absolute favourite things about being in hospitality is meeting so many different people on a daily basis. I am very lucky that I am a people person – I can thank my mum for that – and really enjoy talking to our visitors and guests. Possibly a bit too much sometimes as I’d much rather stop for a chat than sit at my desk and do actual work (Case in point: 3 months between blogs…) Niall is often staggered by how much personal information I can glean from people within minutes of meeting. I recently went to greet new bothy guests and before you could say “Welcome to Kintyre”, Cindy and I were comparing notes on perimenopause.
We really appreciate the effort people make to come and see us, be it to stay, experience our gin school or tour, or just to enjoy our lovely wee café. I try and instil in the staff that every visitor has made an effort to get us – whether they started from Carradale, Campbeltown or Canada.
We’ve welcomed some wonderful international groups this year including a Swiss classic car club who arrived in style in a range of beautiful vintage cars and enjoyed a wee tasting (for the passengers!) and a tour of the distillery.
This week a hilarious gaggle of 5 sisters from Malaysia showed up at the café, half an hour before we opened but our philosophy is that if the coffee machine is on, everyone gets served. They were great fun and loved hearing about life on the estate. They were intrigued to meet “Lord” Niall (I quickly corrected them and explained that ‘laird’ is much less fancy!). He indulged them with a photo and impressed them with some rude Cantonese phrases he learned from his mate Dave who lives in Kota Kinabalu.
In May we welcomed a fabulous group of ladies from North America and Canada who came for a guided estate walk followed by lunch then gin school. They were another really fun bunch, and it was an absolute pleasure to hang out with them and tell them all about Torrisdale life. Days like that really don’t feel like work! One of the women, Elizabeth Rosner, is a published author and I was so touched when she emailed a few weeks later with a beautiful piece she had written about her Torrisdale experience.
It’s a lovely piece of writing and really captures the essence of what we are trying to do here. I echo Elizabeth’s words that I genuinely felt like I’d made new friends.
