Age: New Make Spirit

ABV: 62.9%, Bottled Straight from the Stills

Bottle Size: 700ml

Tasting Notes: Gentle peat on the nose and some hay if you look for it. Sweet sugar candies on the palate. A bit of zing on the rear finish. 

Natural color, non-chill filtered.

What is Lingdarroch?

What is Lingdarroch? Lingdarroch is the trade name for the peated distillate from the most southernly distillery in Scotland. Need another hint? It’s located in Scotland’s National Book Town, Wigtown and produces both peated and non-peated whiskies. It’s also a quick boat ride across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland. Still not sure, we’ll spill the beans, Lingdarroch hails from the beautiful Bladnoch Distillery.

We thought it would be fun to let the US taste how the liquid comes right off the Scottish stills. This peated new make spirit, does just that. Bottled at 62.9% ABV, this is an unaged spirit, with absolutely no dilution or added water; not for the faint of heart. Taste it, share it or age it on your own. Experiment with how aging, time in the wood and flavors add to and enhance this high-quality liquid from Bladnoch Distillery. Consider a whisky making kit or bar top mini barrel to age your own whisky.

Curious about where this marvelous new make hails from? Here’s a bit more about Scotland’s most southernly distillery. Like many distilleries, Bladnoch traces its roots to farming, with two brothers securing a license to officially distill whisky on their farm in 1817. For nearly a century, the distillery stayed with the family until 1905 when production was shut down due to lower demand for scotch whisky.

In 1911, the distillery was resurrected by Dunville & Co, a Belfast distiller who saw the potential but once again in 1937, Bladnoch was shuttered. Many additional owners came and went over the years, including Ross & Coulter (who actually sold off the aging stock and the distilling equipment), Inver House, Bell’s, and Diageo. In 1993, Guiness (now part of Diageo decommissioned Bladnoch and it sat empty until two more brothers came along. These brothers, the Armstrongs hailed from Northern Ireland and originally had plans for a resort at the site, but they too soon caught the whisky bug. However, as the terms of the sales contract with Diageo prohibited them from making whisky on site, it took a long six years for them to persuade Diageo to allow them to produce a small amount of spirit. So small that the whisky production was never really profitable and the brothers made most of their income from tourism and on-site storage.

Fast forward to today, and the Bladnoch Distillery is thriving under the ownership of Australian businessman David Prior. Prior purchased Bladnoch in 2015 and after extensive refurbishment, the stills once again began flowing in 2017.  In 2019, Master Distiller Dr. Nick Savage, formerly of The Macallan, joined Bladnoch. The malt’s character is fruity with spice notes, attributed to its double distillation.