Lindores Abbey Distillery has secured an exclusive cask supply contract with Bodegas Toro Albalá in Montilla Moriles, which will give Lindores Abbey Distillery exclusive access to a wide range of ex-Bodega butts for maturing and finishing their single malt.
Toro Albalá is perhaps most famous for its 1946 Don Convento, which scored 100 points in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate guide, gaining full marks and being distinguished as ‘extraordinary’.
Lindores Abbey Distillery founder, Drew McKenzie Smith, explains that Bodegas and Lindores Abbey make for a natural partnership: “Toro Albalá and Lindores Abbey Distillery are the perfect match. Both are family-run companies that place an emphasis on producing the very finest product.
We have been looking to form long-term agreements with the finest wine producers, and this is the first of these. You cannot do better than 100 Parker points, and we are sure that these casks, which are exclusively from PX, will be the perfect partner for our award-winning new make spirit.”
The first cask delivery arrived with Lindores earlier this year, and included some ex-sherry casks dating back to 1937. A team from the distillery will be visiting the Bodega in Montilla in October - travel restrictions permitting - to personally select and collect casks, some of which are of a similar age and have been stored for more than 70 years.
The age of such casks can make the final product quite unpredictable, but this also opens up many possibilities for the whisky's flavour profile. Drew added, “We cannot wait to get some casks back over here and filled. Ex-Bodega butts containing wines like the Don PX are so difficult to find nowadays, so we are thrilled.”
The first single malt from Lindores Abbey Distillery, the ‘spiritual home of Scotch whisky’, will not be offered for public sale – the run of 1,494 bottles will be exclusively available through membership of the 1494 Society. The historic bottling will be launched in March this year.
It is a distinguishing feature of the 1494 Society that only 1,494 Memberships are, and will ever be, available; once they are all taken, there will be no other way to procure a bottle of the first release directly from Lindores Abbey Distillery. For more information, and to join the society, click here.
Toro Albalá is perhaps most famous for its 1946 Don Convento, which scored 100 points in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate guide, gaining full marks and being distinguished as ‘extraordinary’.
Lindores Abbey Distillery founder, Drew McKenzie Smith, explains that Bodegas and Lindores Abbey make for a natural partnership: “Toro Albalá and Lindores Abbey Distillery are the perfect match. Both are family-run companies that place an emphasis on producing the very finest product.
We have been looking to form long-term agreements with the finest wine producers, and this is the first of these. You cannot do better than 100 Parker points, and we are sure that these casks, which are exclusively from PX, will be the perfect partner for our award-winning new make spirit.”
The first of the Pedro Ximenez casks from Toro Albalá being filled by Martin Johnson, father of co-founder Helen McKenzie Smith, who is the same age as the 1937 cask credit: F.D Young Photography
The first cask delivery arrived with Lindores earlier this year, and included some ex-sherry casks dating back to 1937. A team from the distillery will be visiting the Bodega in Montilla in October - travel restrictions permitting - to personally select and collect casks, some of which are of a similar age and have been stored for more than 70 years.
The age of such casks can make the final product quite unpredictable, but this also opens up many possibilities for the whisky's flavour profile. Drew added, “We cannot wait to get some casks back over here and filled. Ex-Bodega butts containing wines like the Don PX are so difficult to find nowadays, so we are thrilled.”
The first single malt from Lindores Abbey Distillery, the ‘spiritual home of Scotch whisky’, will not be offered for public sale – the run of 1,494 bottles will be exclusively available through membership of the 1494 Society. The historic bottling will be launched in March this year.
It is a distinguishing feature of the 1494 Society that only 1,494 Memberships are, and will ever be, available; once they are all taken, there will be no other way to procure a bottle of the first release directly from Lindores Abbey Distillery. For more information, and to join the society, click here.
