Where to start? Let’s start with gold, let’s start with awards, let’s start with why we do what we do!
It was my enormous privilege to share with the distillery team that, not only had we picked up an outstanding gold at the IWSC, but we were also awarded double gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition! This is very humbling; but also, I feel, well deserved. We have worked tirelessly for the last five years to get to this point – and we have been to the mountain top and to the depths of the abyss on our journey. As the late great Robin Williams once said when describing the game of golf, ‘we will put a little hole at the far end with a wee flag in it, to give you hope!’
We always did hope to make the best whisky possible at Lindores; and now that hope is turning into recognition across all levels – across all continents – and that is amazing to be part of. Well done team!
At the moment the distillery is silent whilst we go on a 12,000-bottle run of the Casks Of Lindores STR Wine Barrique Limited Edition. This is a cracking dram, using the unique casks agreed with Dr Jim Swan and Miguel Martin. I don’t know the exact spec agreed, I was never told; but I can tell it’s almost at Alligator Char, which not only speeds up the maturation but for me also imparts a little smokiness to the whisky. You will enjoy this dram, of that I am sure!
Some of you may have been fortunate to pick up a bottle of our Distillery Exclusive Monbazillac cask. We were so happy with its progress that we have since received another twenty casks to be filled. Also, on the back of this we have a full load of forty Thiron French Oak Virgin Wine Barrique Casks currently heading across the English Channel. There is more to this story, and we will tweak your anticipation on this for a few months yet; but these will all be solely for Lindores use.
Lastly, regarding barley or, as we use in the process, malt; we are once again working closely with our good friends at the Crafty Maltsters. This year we will again be doing a special run, this time it will be Bere Barley (pronounced Bear). This is a heritage strain and probably hasn’t been used in Fife for distilling for many, many years, maybe even as far back to the time when the monks actually worked the land around the Abbey, and used it for the brewing of beer and the making of Aqua Vitae. At the moment we just plan to use the Bere spirit for our single malt whisky, but maybe we can tap a little of the spirit off and see how it works as the base for the Aqua Vitae and really harness our inner Friar John Corr.
Slàinte
Gary Haggart
Distillery Manager
