The rolling hills of rural Ayrshire are home to one of Scotland’s most up-and-coming new single malt distilleries – Lochlea. The distillery is one of very few in Scotland to operate a true ‘field to bottle’ policy and they are beginning to make waves in the Scotch whisky world and beyond with a series of impressive early releases. Last Autumn, Matt was invited to pay a visit.
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The journey to Lochlea was met with very poor weather, often described in Scotland as ‘driech’. A bumpy flight from London and the following drive to the distillery through torrential rain were fairly brutal. Hats off to Sarah from Lochlea’s marketing team who came to pick us up from Glasgow and got us to the distillery safely. She really pulled the short straw that day.
The Lochlea Distilling Co. was founded in 2015 by Neil McGeoch. Located to the south of Kilmarnock, he converted the 300 year old Lochlea Farm from beef production to growing barley for whisky making. He had taken over the farm several years earlier in 2006 but was intrigued by how to diversify and make the farm more profitable. The distillery is in the old piggery with two cattle sheds repurposed as maturation warehouses.
The independent family-owned distillery has an annual production capacity of 200,000 litres. Production began in late-2017 with the Lochlea First Release launching in early 2022. One of keys to their initial success - they have been taken to the hearts of many whisky fans and won several impressive awards - is that all barley used for whisky production is grown on the farm. This equates to 600 tonnes per annum.
The barley for production in 2024 had been harvested just a couple of weeks prior to the visit. This year's crop was of Laureate, a high yielding variety of spring barley. It is difficult to imagine what 600 tonnes of barley looks like until faced with it, spread across three bays in a large storage shed. And it is an impressive and slightly imposing sight. Each grain is stored at the distillery until required, with the temperate climate keeping the barley dormant.
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| The grain store. |
Three times a year the barley is sent to Bairds for malting. This happens in 200 tonne batches, which are returned to the distillery and used as needed. It was interesting to hear that a longer term plan to open traditional floor maltings at the distillery is being considered. Only two distilleries of the 140+ making single malt in Scotland grow all of their own barley. Daftmill in Fife is the other.
The mash tun takes two tonnes of milled malt per batch. Warm water is added in three stages - at 64.5°C, then 85°C then again at 85°C - to extract the soluble sugars from the grains. Rakes stir the mash each time with the aim to create a semi-clear wort - the sugary solution that is taken to the next stage of the process. A semi-clear wort gives biscuity, cereal and green fruity notes.
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| The mash tun. |
Six washbacks are used for fermentation. These are constructed of Douglas Fir and have a capacity of 15,000 litres. However, each is only filled to 10,000 litres per batch. Dried Mauri yeast is added to kickstart fermentation. Lochlea operates two short and three long fermentations per week, at 66 and 116 hours respectively. Once distilled, each batch is then married in the filling store for consistency.
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| The wooden washbacks with spirit safe and stills. |
Lochlea has one pair of copper pot stills - the larger wash still has a 10,000 litre capacity and the smaller spirit still 6,700 litres. They are hand operated, as most of the distillery processes are, and steam controlled. Slow distillation is practiced to maintain high ester levels for a fruity final spirit. The wash is distilled to around 25% ABV then re-distilled to be taken off the spirit still at 67% ABV.
Around 30 casks are filled per week. This takes place each Wednesday. Luckily, the visit was on a Wednesday so there was opportunity to see this in action. Even better, to actually fill a cask. Each cask is filled using a gauge similar to a petrol pump and by measuring its weight - a full hogshead is 250kg with a butt 500kg. Filling on that particular Wednesday was to ex-sherry hogheads, plus ex-Port and ex-white Port butts.
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| Matt filling an ex-sherry hogshead with new make spirit. |
Lochlea currently has two warehouses with 7,000 casks spread between them. There is capacity for up to 10,000. The majority of casks are matured in racks and on pallets, with a small percentage being in traditional dunnage - most of these are very early casks from 2017 and 2018, plus some very special projects. Each cask is numbered and with a barcode.
Most are ex-bourbon (sourced from Maker's Mark in Kentucky) or ex-sherry (sourced from Miguel Martin in Spain), but several other cask types were spotted - ex-rum, ex-Sauternes, ex-red wine, French oak, ex-Islay whisky and numerous different sweet and fortified wines. There are currently a staggering 26 different origins of cask in use.
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| Inside one of the warehouses at Lochlea. |
Then for a tutored tasting with John Campbell, Scotch whisky industry legend and Director of Production at Lochlea. It is always a pleasure to spend time and chat with John, who has 20+ years as Distillery Manager at the iconic Islay distillery of Laphroaig on his CV. However, the opportunity to help drive Lochlea forwards came at the right time and was too good to miss.
The tasting was super informal and covered several limited edition releases to date including the Fallow Edition (2nd Crop) and Our Barley, which remains the only core range product as this post is written. Also sampled was liquid from several upcoming potential bottlings, which seemed a particularly special treat and indulgence. Click on the video link below to watch Matt's chat with John in full.
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| Our tasting featured expressions of Lochlea released to date. |
Lochlea is not open to public and they have no immediate plans to do so. Therefore, it felt a real privilege to be invited and shown what they are doing there. It is an impressive set up and one that has clearly been considered and calculated since its inception. The evidence of that is everywhere and most importantly in the spirit. We will be keeping a keen eye on how things evolve at Lochlea and hope to be back there one day soon.
A huge thanks to John Campbell, Neil McGeoch and Sarah Snedden from Lochlea for their time and making us feel so welcome, and to Emily Harris from MayFox PR who organised everything.
For further information on Lochlea and their single malt whiskies, please visit www.lochleadistillery.com.
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