Islay’s Ardnahoe Distillery will release its first ever whisky bottling, Inaugural Release, on 10 May (RRP: £70).
Aged for five years in ex-bourbon and ex-oloroso sherry casks, and bottled at 50% abv, the single malt is the first from a new distillery on the island since 2009. The release marks a historic moment for Ardnahoe, the name of which means ‘Height of the Hollow’ in Scottish Gaelic.
Situated on the northeast coast of Islay, Ardnahoe is the culmination of a family’s dream to have its own distillery on the famous whisky-making island – namely Stewart Laing and sons Andrew and Scott of independent bottling and blending company Hunter Laing & Co.
The distillery lays claim to a number of records: It’s the only distillery on Islay using worm tubs; its stills have the longest lyne arms in Scotland (at 7.5 metres); and its water source, Loch Ardnahoe, is said to be the deepest on Islay.
Commenting on the whisky heritage behind Islay’s ninth distillery, Andrew said: ‘As a family we’ve been in this industry for three generations. My dad did his distillery training here in the 1960s as a teenager, and so this was kind of coming full circle.
‘It was always our father’s, and my brother’s and my dream, to make our own whisky here.’
Inaugural Release, produced with distiller manager Fraser Hughes, has been made using malted barley from Port Ellen Maltings on Islay’s south coast, with a phenol content of 40ppm. Using Loch Ardnahoe’s soft water which
