In the mouth: The ethanol bite is just as intense as on the nose. I get slightly medium notes of lime peel, Thai limes leaves, starfruit, and a light whimper of honeydew melon. There are flashes of sapodilla in-between. Blurred tastes of honey, salted caramel, toffee, cinnamon, and winter melon tea. Like on the nose, starfruit notes become pronounced again. Conclusions:

MoM: Can you just tell me a little about the Wemyss Malts range. Did you buy in whiskies or new-make spirit? IW: We started buying in mature whiskies. Part of my role was buying in casks and actually, many of the ways I learned about spirit and wood was learning about different kinds of spirit and how they interacted with the different kinds of wood all over Scotland, and buying different whiskies. And then in the last probably eight years, we’ve started filling other people’s spirit into our own casks. That’s also been a journey of matching the cask to the spirit type.The Dream to Dram is very light, smooth, friendly and has sufficient depth and complexity to keep things interesting- due to clever use of first-fill bourbon casks to impart sweet vanilla custardy flavours and STR casks to impart a little more complexity. I find the soft fruity and floral notes are so palatable. The texture and experience of this whisky on the tongue is comparable to some decently-aged whiskies out there- as good as perhaps a 12 year old Scotch. Consider grabbing a dram from our store here to try this for yourself! There can be few new distilleries as beautiful as Kingsbarns. It’s set in rolling Fife farmland and housed in a converted 18th century farmstead, complete with a dovecote that looks like a wee castle. The Wemyss (pronounced Weems) family is old Scottish nobility with its seat at a proper castle nearby called, naturally, Wemyss Castle. This part of Scotland attracts visitors from all over the world to the home of golf, St Andrews Links. As William Wemyss put it, “We’re bringing together golf and Scotland’s other great export.” He means whisky, not shortbread. IW: Yes, we’ve got a plan going forward for different releases at different ages but it’s a surprise when they come. The combination of the long fermentation process and long distillation process allows Kingsbarns to create a sweet, light-bodied, floral, grassy and fruity Lowland-style malt.

We were fortunate to recently have had a virtual tasting session with Kingsbarns’ distillery manager, Peter Holroyd. The distillery got its name from its location and history. Kingsbarns is a small village in Fife wherein the kings of Scotland would store their grain. The distillery started operating in 2014 and filled its first cask in 2015. Right at the moment you swallow the whisky, a slight twinge of heat zings your tongue. This is the sensation of very light ginger spiciness that is probably derived from the European STR cask. Nothing in the Terms shall exclude or limit our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or for death or personal injury resulting from gross negligence or willful misconduct by us.

Score: 5/10

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What is up Pandas! Most of the Scotchs we try hail from the more prolific whisky regions around Scotland, such as Speyside, the Highlands and Islay. Today, we’ll be trying our second bottle of Lowlands Scotch (our first Lowlands review is on Eden Mill). Everything is geared up to produce a fruity, pure spirit, from the unpeated local barley to the two types of yeast used (for all the whisky geeks out there, they are Anchor and Safwhisky M1). Fermentation takes between three and five days and, according to Peter Holroyd, the distillery manager, the two yeasts produce lots of “fruit esters”. When it comes to distillation, he takes a very narrow cut from the 4,500 litre spirit still to ensure a light, clean spirit with no heavy elements. Today’s line up are Kingsbarns’ new make spirit and Dream to Dram. The new make is labeled as “spirit drink” since Scotch regulations require a cereal grain-based spirit be at least three years old before it can be counted as a whisky. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid, the remainder of the Terms shall continue in full force and effect. The result is a beautifully light, clean yet complex Lowland style malt whisky which perfectly captures the essence of this quiet and enchanting corner of Scotland.

After all, at it's base Doocot has been made using the same spirit and wood mixture as Dream to Dram but, like a fine wine or cheese, it has matured into a more rounded and complex expression.

IW: We do have quite a lot of visitors over the year, obviously particularly in the summer with the golfing and St Andrew. It’s more of a visitor season than at the moment. If we decide not to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms, such decision shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. How is the Lowlands’ style of Scotch whisky like? Lowlands Scotches tend to be more gentle and floral in taste and aroma. Their whisky distilleries were once unimaginatively referred to as “Lowland Ladies". Why? Firstly, their distilleries tend to triple-distill their whiskies, which makes their taste more delicate. Lowlanders are also often unpeated. Rather than using peat to toast barley, it seems that Lowlands distilleries prefer using the neutral-smelling coal to toast the barley- thereby imparting no peaty smokiness to the barley. The historical preference to use coal rather than peat is likely due to the Lowland’s strong coal-mining industry. Each and every Member must be of legal drinking age in its country of residence to be allowed to use the Service. If no such law exists in a Member’s country of residence, the Member has to be over 21 years old to use the Service. We have the right to ask you to provide proof of your age and/or to provide further identification to prevent underage usage and/or for any other legal or legitimate purpose. By using the Service, and by creating an account you represent, warrant and confirm that you are of legal age. IW: Gosh. Well, we’ve been open three and a half years, so it was about an 18-month build I think, so four and a half, or five years, it must have been, at a guess. Yes, it was about five, six years. Call it six years.

Conclusions:

MoM: So you’re clearly thinking very long term about it. How do you feel about the future of Scotch whisky, because obviously at the moment it’s on something of a high? This bottling, aptly named Dream to Dram, is from some of the earliest casks filled at Kingsbarns. The whisky has been matured in 1st fill ex-Bourbon American Oak casks, and shaved, toasted and re-charred barriques (STR casks). Unchillfiltered and natural colour. The floral and fruity notes really take the centre stage even as they are very gentle. With a few minutes of careful nosing, you might detect some vanilla and slight oakiness, but this is rather subtle and could be missed. IW: Yes, he was involved at the start. So he helped us design the spirit and he gave me a lot of advice to begin with, from the wood type. And then he died, actually not long after we started, but he certainly helped us get going.