Apr. 10: Lindores Abbey Scotch Whisky with Tim Foster, their Export Manager...

Fellow Drammers,

We’re excited to announce a special online tasting with the team from the Lindores Abbey Distillery on April 10th at Noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 20:00 in Scotland. None of what we’re tasting is available anywhere in the US currently, and they’re between impossible and pretty hard to find anywhere outside of Scotland honestly.

Although in many ways Lindores Abbey is a brand new distillery, historically, this distillery (or at least its predecessor) plays an important role in the history of whisky, as the first known written reference to whisky that historians have discovered today was a reference in 1494 to the King of England asking the actual Lindores Abbey (the same location as the new distillery today) to make whisky for him, and they made a lot of it, so clearly this was something they did there. Specifically, in the “Exchequer Roll” that has been found for that year, it names Brother John Cor, a Lindores monk, who was commissioned by King James IV to turn 8 bolls of malt into Aqua Vitae (about 400 bottles of today’s whisky").

I took the tour at the distillery a couple weeks ago, and apparently it was all for a single party — must have been one hell of a party — but obviously that pretty clearly implies whisky had been made there for some time, so nobody is claiming this was the date of the first whisky they made there, or that Lindores Abbey was the first distillery to make whisky. But still, it’s the earliest known written reference, which is pretty cool. That prompted famed writer Michael Jackson to visit the site years ago and declare that “for the whisky lover, it is a pilgrimage”. That in turn prompted the founders of the current distillery, who had wanted to build a distillery in the region for years, to resurrect a new distillery on the location of the original abbey. So as their website says, “after a break of 523 years, spirit is once again flowing from the copper stills at Lindores Abbey”. Fun. And it doesn’t hurt that their first releases of their single malt are damn good.

The new distillery has been incorporated into the ruins of the old Lindores Abbey dating back to the 1400s, including some of the old walls of the abbey. And they’re doing some cool archeological stuff on the site, uncovering what is believed to be some old distilling equipment etc. Perhaps more importantly from our perspective, they have attempted to recreate what the whiskey might have tasted like back then, what they call their Aqua Vitae release - essentially an infused new make, since back then aging whisky in barrels wasn’t much of a thing. It is infused with a wide range of spices and herbs that would have been found in the garden and surrounding vegetation of the old distillery. We’ll be tasting that at this event, and we’ll also be trying their first whisky release that came out a few months ago — a single malt scotch, the MCDXCIV (I suspect you can guess what number that references). In addition, we’ll be tasting a rare single barrel that was only released at a handful of local retail shops in Scotland — a bourbon cask (one of three barrel types they blend together for their core range, the other two being sherry and wine, so this single barrel isolates one of those 3 elements). Finally we’ll be trying their new make (I have 600ml of that, vs. 700ml of the others, so it will be a slightly smaller sample). And we’ll be joined by their Export Manager Tim Foster, who will be joining us from Edinburgh for the event to tell us all about it. We’ll also include a bonus pour of the Sazerac Rye single barrel that our members in Warsaw, Poland selected, so 5 expressions total (new make, Aqua Vitae, the MCDXCIV and the single barrel ex-bourbon single malt, plus the bonus pour of rye).

We hope you can join us! Please let us know if you have any questions!

Cheers,
Drammers Club

• WHEN: Sunday, April 10th, starting at Noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 20:00 in Scotland

• FORMAT: Online / Zoom

  • ZOOM LINK: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81237147304?pwd=VXpOWWd3aTVPTlJpTTd3Z2lSSW5GQT09

  • Meeting ID: 812 3714 7304

  • Passcode: 041022

• PRICE: $40 for Drammers Members / $50 for Drammers Observers