Lindores Abbey is one of the new distilleries that popped up in the last decade like mushrooms after the rain and like many new distilleries it’s based in the Lowlands whisky region, near Perth and the Tay river.

With so many new distilleries, each new distillery has a story, design and marketing points to set them apart and above the other distilleries as competition is tough, in the whisky buyers minds, on shelves and search engine results. After all, they all have young single malt spirit or whisky to sell and it’s way too early to forecast and imagine what shape and route will their new whisky take in a decade or two.

In the case of Lindores Abbey they went for a unique (and nice) bottle shape that really differentiate them from most of the new new distilleries. But more important, they have a trumping marketing card – in Lindores there’s the earliest proof of first whisky distillation in Scotland which happened back in 1494, hence the usage of MCDXCIV in the name.

Their first wide spread commercial release is this three years old whisky and they too went the route of mixing wine casks in the formula to speed up the aging and diminish the newmake/spiritiness notes. Here, they used Bourbon, Sherry and Wine Barriqué casks and bottled at 46% sold for a very decent price. Let’s check it out.

Lindores Abbey Distillery MCDXCIV Lowland Single Malt (46%, £42/€39.9)

Photo: thewhiskyexchange.com

Nose: Sweet, cereals more bakery, biscuits, fatness and chewiness, honey, tannins, young but pleasant, fresh oak spice and after a while also red fruits peels with honey and cinnamon. More and more bakery smells, dry red wine and cranberries.

Palate: Spicy red wine, red fruit peels, mulled wine, honeyed cereals, dough, oak spice and white pepper, fatness, semi drying

Finish: Unsurprising short medium length. Spices, bitterness of oak spice and tannins, red fruit peels, gentle honey sweetness and cereals.

Thoughts: Nose is pretty good, feels way older than three years and well integrated. As I suspected (and expected) the nose is leaps and bounds ahead of the palate although the gap somewhat closed after oxidization and time. Since this release they released a bourbon casks expression which wasn’t too shabby and I believe they have a lot of potential to tap in with time and good wood management – now we need to enjoy what they have now while also waiting for older and mature stock in a few years time.