This whisky is the second release of limited edition Ploughing Edition single malt range from the Lowland distillery of Lochlea. The Lochlea Ploughing Edition (Second Crop) is the fourth and final bottling in its Second Crop series, which celebrates the annual farm cycle. Other releases include the Sowing, Harvest and Fallow Editions. Lochlea is one of the only distilleries in Scotland to grow all of the barley used for whisky production.
________
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.
This whisky is a special limited edition from the award-winning Lowland farm-to-bottle distillery of Lochlea. It has been released to mark their fifth birthday. The whisky is a vatting of just five casks, each showing a different side to the house spirit. Two of them included are from the very first distillation and cask filling in August 2018. It is the oldest whisky released by Lochlea to date and the first to carry an age statement.
As the world thankfully moves further away from the Covid-19 pandemic, some normality has resumed. The whisky world has responded with more releases than ever, fuelled by the ever-growing craft and artisan distilling movement around the globe. It has been difficult to select just ten to be honest, given that we have sampled close to 150 whiskies this year.
This whisky is the inaugural single malt bottling from the Lowland farm distillery of Lochlea. The Lochlea Single Malt First Release was recently launched on Burns Night (January 25). This was in homage to the famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns, who lived and worked at the Ayrshire farm where the distillery is located. Lochlea only uses barley grown on the farm for production of their single malt and distillation began in August 2018.
