Strathearn Inaugural Single Malt

In 2019 popular independent botters Douglas Laing purchased Strathearn distillery and entered the world of distilling! Strathearn itself was only founded in 2013, but that’s still earlier than most of the young ‘craft’ minded distilleries, helping to blaze the trail for small scale, traditional, and experimental whisky production where flavour is a far higher priority than the alcohol yield.

A prime example of this is their use of heritage varieties of barley, namely Marris Otter which is prized in the brewing world for its flavour and body (as opposed to its efficiency). Likewise fermentation is very long at 144 hours. This is Douglas Laing’s inaugural Strathearn single malt release launched in April 2024, using 32 selected ex-bourbon, fresh oak, and ex-sherry casks. It includes a proportion of whiskies distilled before they took over as well as some distilled after they took the reigns.