Lindores Abbey Distillery Visit (2019)

Something we at JSW had never done before is to essentially buy whisky on futures. That is, we’ve never tasted new make spirit, selected a cask to put it in for maturing and then waited a number of years to get the whisky bottled and delivered.

Lindores Abbey is a newer distillery created by a group of investors that enlisted the late, great Dr. Jim Swan to help them restore whisky distilling to the spiritual home of Scotch whisky. The original abbey dates back to the 1100s and was the home of Brother John Cor, who was famously granted 8 bolls of malt for making aqua vitae by royal decree back in 1Xxx, the first reference to whisky in official documents on the isle of Britain. The distillery is situated on the site of the original abbey in the Kingdom of Fife, with preservation of the ruins moreso than incorporation of the remains of the ancient original buildings. It could not have been easy trying to reconcile historic preservation with creating a modern distillery, but the end product is a handsome property near the city of Perth with 3 stills, new wooden wash backs, one mash tun, a new grain mill, tasting rooms and educational materials aplenty.

The distillery manager and master distiller, Gary Haggart, met with us. Gary explained he learned the distilling trade with Diageo at Cragganmore. At Lindores, they are looking to utilize local barley as much as possible while achieving a fruity Highlands style spirit. After a bit of experimentation, it was settled that a longer fermentation of the wort (96 hours or longer) followed by a hearty distillation to increase copper contacts and a late cut on the back end helped achieve the desired character of spirit.

The wash still is quite large and produces a copious quantity of low wines that are then distilled in the identical twin spirit stills, nicknamed Poppy and Gee. These identical twins produced strikingly different new make from the low wines that marry up well and come off at 67% ABV. Casking is done at 63% ABV in barrels provided by Speyside Cooperage. Casks being utilized are primarily ex-bourbon (Old Forrester for greater spice flavor and Heaven Hill for a sweeter flavor) as well as former sherry casks. However, experimentation with the new make is being done with ex-red wine, rum, Calvados, and Sauternes casks and ex -port pipes. Quite interestingly, Gary indicated that some former Laphroaig and Ardbeg casks are being utilized for some experimenting with peat influence without ‘contaminating’ the washbacks.

We sampled 2 different bourbon barrels, the rum and peated barrels. Our conclusions were that the spirit is quite good and will be excellent whisky in the foreseeable future as the samples we tried weren’t yet 2 years mature and were already drinkable.