American news magazine, TIME, has revealed its list of the world’s greatest places for 2025, and a Scottish distillery has made the cut.
For the annual list of the World’s Greatest Places, TIME seeks out one-of-a-kind spots, destinations and experiences around the globe to showcase to its travel-savvy audience.
This year Port Ellen on Islay made the coveted list, as did the Flow Country in Caithness and Sutherland.
Port Ellen Distillery on Islay reopened on 19 March with a bold vision to be a trailblazing light for the future of whisky distillation. This accolade comes almost a year after the grand reopening as the ghost distillery closed more than 40 years ago, part of the ‘whisky loch’.
The opening represents the final chapter in the £185 million investment by parent company Diageo, which has also seen the reopening of the other famous ghost distillery Brora, as well as investment in the company’s Scotch whisky visitor experiences.
TIME Magazine had this to say about the distillery: “In the scotch industry, a ghost distillery is the preserved site of former whisky production that has long since shuttered.
“Until last year, there wasn’t an example more revered than Port Ellen, which developed a cult following as its whiskies became rarer and continued to age when the distillery beside the cragged southern shores of Islay was abandoned in 1983.
“But after four decades of silence—and a roughly $23 million refurbishment—the legendary malt maker has roared back to life, ushering in a new era of luxury tourism on the remote Hebridean isle.”
The UNESCO World Heritage Flow Country also made the list. TIME said of this: “Hiking trails take visitors into the world of resilient sphagnum mosses and to an observation platform in the modernist Flows Lookout Tower framing panoramas over the peatlands.
“During spring and early summer, nature lovers will catch flowering bog-bean and wading birds like the common greenshank on the waterways.”
Find out more and see the full list at the TIME website.
