After much anticipation, InchDairnie Distillery, located at the heart of Scotland’s Fife region, just released its first whisky.
He explained that the mash bill features 53% malted rye and 47% malted barley, ground extra fine for maximum flavor extraction. The cereals were mashed using a Meura mash filter, one of only a handful in Scotland. And the grain was fermented using a rye-specific yeast, which results in lower yields, but higher flavor.
Palmer noted that the whisky was double distilled in pot stills, not continuous distillation … the first with double condensers and the second in a bespoke Lomond Hill still designed by Palmer alongside stillmaker Frilli. The whisky then matured in charred new oak casks, created from trees that can be traced back to forests in America’s Ozark Mountains.
“We’ve been preparing for this day for well over a decade, and it is only now that we feel the quality of RyeLaw meets our exacting standards that we are putting it into bottles,” Palmer said. “And what a whisky it is. While we are rooted in Scotch whisky tradition, we have explored what is possible when agriculture meets industry and innovative technologies combine with methodology, to create a superb rye whisky that is sure to excite palates.”
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Scott Sneddon, distillery manager, described the whisky as having a rye spiciness with vanilla, sweet biscuit cereal and dried fruit notes. “The use of malted rye in the mash means we have a softer, more sippable style of rye whisky.”
This new expression comes in a tall bottle that features a ripple effect on one side, representing the company’s philosophy of innovation in materials, methods, and maturation. The bottle’s neck is inspired by the special filter of the hammer mill.
Distillation of this release took place over a single week during the Christmas holidays of 2015. About 200 casks of the ‘year one vintage’ have been bottled, the distiller notes. Future vintages are maturing now in different types of cask to those from year one’s Ozark Mountains barrels.
The inaugural RyeLaw whisky clocks in at 46.3% ABV and has a suggested retail price of £110. It’s now available at select retailers and online. For more information, check out www.inchdairniedistillery.com.
