...Whisky galore.

Don't breathe a word to anyone, but I think I may have discovered the best job in the world.

First though, you must take the high road and drive towards Speyside, the swathe of the Scottish Highlands where nature and human ingenuity combine to produce a bliss called a single malt. The purest form of whisky, that is, Scottish wine...the true nectar of the north.

With the lure of the dram ahead of you, it might seem difficult to linger or detour on the way - but there are many temptations to slow your journey.

For those millions who work and live south of the border, it's difficult to comprehend the landscape: majestic granite bluffs hang above chattering rivers, foaming white over the peat-brown water. Great stands of trees march beside the roads in a panoply of greens that rival New England's Fall.

And it is wild country: go warily among the wolves and bears that roam the Highland wildlife park at Kincraig, see reindeer in the hills, red squirrel trails at the Landmark theme park in Carrbridge and, from a special hide with a long-range telescope at the Loch Garten Reserve, watch the country's only ospreys at their nest.

Through the summer, you'll barely turn a corner without seeing a Highland Games, with the skirl of the bagpipes, tug-o'-war, races and what they quaintly call heavy events' - throwing lumps of metal and tossing the caber.

Out here, you suddenly realise why the warm and courteous Scots are so proud of their country; they preserve their heritage and glory in rituals handed down over time.

There are castles galore, snag-toothed ruins, like Tolquhon Castle, looming on hillsides, others with turrets, like Castle Fraser, where you could swear you have seen Rapunzel letting down her hair.

The Scots, of course, invented golf - it was even banned in 1491 because too many people were playing instead of practising archery. Today, courses proliferate and offer a range of tests - from traditional links courses to those set on hillsides, plus driving ranges to hone your skills.

And you can shop for tartan (the James Pringle people in Inverness even let you try to weave a piece of your own), for glass, locally-created jewellery and food that has export markets across the world, not least from the Baxter's Highland Village, near Elgin.

And so to drink... and the best job in the world.

Glenfiddich - literally the valley of the deer - is one of those places you can stumble on and not want to leave. It is also where your education into the mysteries of malt begins.

My teacher was a man called Tatsuya Minagawa, who came from Kyoto, Japan, and fell in love with whisky - and now presides over the 400-plus malts at the Craigellachie Hotel.

Using glasses you normally associate with sherry, he actually offers a jug of spring water: "Until you are really practised, it is quite a good idea to add just a tiny drop to release the bouquet of the whisky," he explained.

It is exquisite and the art of drinking malt is to savour it; this is imbibing in the continental manner, where you can let one drink last an hour or more while indulging in conversation.

Next morning at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Dufftown, where 80,000 people a year take the free tour that ends with a dram, I opted for the Connoisseurs Tour, under the tutelage of Chief Guide David Mair.

It costs £12 a head, but the two-and-a-half hours in-depth tour takes you through normally unseen areas of the distillery - such as the vast Solera warehouse, where the 15-year-old Solera Reserve is made by adding malts that have rested in a mixture of sherry and bourbon casks to produce a sweeter finish and from which the whisky acquires some of its colour.

The process begins with the malting - germination of barley to release sugar essential for fermentation. At the distillery, the barley is milled to produce grist, to which heated spring water is added. The mixture then goes through a series of vast tuns until it reaches the small oddly-shaped stills, which the family-run distillery retains to ensure consistency of the whisky.

The distillery has 120 million litres of alcohol on site at any one time. Occasionally, a rare bottle of 50-year-old malt is released - the last time one fetched £10,000.

The last stage of the Connoisseurs Tour is a tutored nosing and tasting of five different whiskies from the Glenfiddich range, from the Special Reserve, which outsells all other malts, to a new addition, called Caoran Reserve, which is finished for four months in Islay barrels to give it a peatier flavour.

A woman across the table from me, who confessed to not normally being a whisky drinker, sampled the 18-year-old Ancient Reserve. "I'm getting the brambles and pear tree at the bottom of my mother's garden, after rain," she said.

David Mair approved her vision. "You see," he said, "how whisky can inspire your senses."

A guru who can elicit such responses and daily sample the best: beat that for the best job in the world.

Ken Bennett stayed Craigellachie Hotel, Speyside, Banffshire AB38 9SR. Tel: 01340-881204 or click on: www.craigellachie.com. Summer breaks cost £166 per person for two nights dinner, bed and breakfast Glenfiddich. Open all year except Christmas and New Year holidays. Free tour and tasting, but advisable to book the Connoisseurs Tour. Tel: 01340-820373 or click on: www.glenfiddich.com.

For further information, contact the Scottish Tourism Board on 0845-2255121 or visit www.visitscotland.com.