Spirit of Spirits

A Journey into Scotland’s Whisky

A photographic work-in-progress intended to be completed and published in 2024.
 It will cover all of Scotland’s whisky regions, as well as the Islands.

The photographs will be accompanied by a travel journal, along with short historical, technical and social essays about Scotland’s iconic beverage.

From Henry VIII to James IV and John Knox, from Terroir to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Baudoinia compniacensis, from the Highland Clearances to whisky smuggling and the temperance movement, from Robert Burns to Mendelssohn and Mozart, a variety of compelling subjects connected to the cratur will be tackled.

J. Miguel Ferreira

When I visited Scotland for the first time back in 2000, I was so enchanted by the beauty of the landscape that I wanted to return and produce a more thorough body of work. Suffice it to say that it took some time for this project to get underway. It was single malt Scotch whisky that made me do it – well-crafted, exceptional single malts.

Since March 2022, I have been travelling through the Speyside, Highlands, Campbeltown, Lowlands, Islands and Islay regions, visiting distilleries and harvesting images of the surrounding landscapes – landscapes with an abundance of Scotch mist, as only remarkable single malts from those distilleries can deliver.