Loch Ewe 30.09 - 30.10.2008

Loch Ewe thrives on both claims of being the smallest commercial distillery in Scotland and the only one that still lives by the old illicit still tradition. Until a few years ago it was certainly the odd one out on everyone’s list. Situated on the shores of Loch Ewe in a garage of the Drumchork Hotel, it was not to be taken serious as a distillery. None of its casks reached the critical age threshold of three years, so strictly speaking, it didn’t even produce whisky. But the craft distillers revolution may just have blurred the lines between amateur and professional enough to give Loch Ewe an invitation to the big league. Or at least it could have, as of September 2015 the hotel and distillery have been up for grabs and as far as I know, no suitable entrepreneur has been found to take over the reins. Loch Ewe, a potentially lost distillery? Only time will tell.

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Description: distilled on 30 September 2008, matured for one month and bottled on the 30th of October at 55.2 ABV.

Nose: a strong aroma of strawberries, yeast, alcohol of course, malted barley and saw dust.

Mouth: spirituous and medium bodied, with a moderate alcoholic bite and notes of leaf spinach and laurel on the palate.

Finish: short, mainly white pepper.

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Verdict: as always with whisky spirit: interesting but we do prefer the end product. There is promise in the nose and I would have loved to see this grow into maturity. But as we have no such luck I consider Loch Ewe just another box that needed to be ticked on my quest to try as much distilleries as I can.