Distillery
Lindores Abbey
In Fife, in Scotland's Lowland region, Tironensian monks at Lindores Abbey were already distilling by 1494. That year, the Exchequer Rolls recorded eight bolls of malt handed to Friar John Cor, ordered by King James IV to make aqua vitae. It stands today as the earliest written record of whisky making in Scotland. The abbey itself is far older than that, founded in 1191, and once welcomed figures such as Robert the Bruce and William Wallace. Centuries later, founder Drew McKenzie Smith set out to bring distilling back to this same ground. New spirit first ran through the stills in December 2017. Three years and a day later, in December 2020, it legally became Scotch whisky. Lindores Abbey had returned to making the drink first written down within its own walls.
