I will admit I’ve not been following the whisky scene as intensely as I used to. Once upon a time I would be semi permanently on Twitter watching the updates, reading reviews and watching YouTube videos. Partly I think it’s because the range of updates and changes seems to have slowed in the last 3 years but I also needed a bit of a recharge.

However, I can’t have been the only person to have been surprised about the sudden and big bang announcement of Lochlea distillery. I had never heard of any distillery a handful of miles from my family home where I lived as a child and then John Campbell is leaving Laphroaig for a position of Production Director and then almost seamlessly releases are appearing in marketing announcements from social pages I didn’t know existed?

The Distillery

Lochlea distillery sits on Lochlea farm in Ayrshire. Sitting near the hamlet of Craigie this is an area I know quite well. Craigie used to have a pub with excellent food but it seems to have closed in 2020 which is a shame.

Moving away from the marketing story on Robert Burns the Lochlea distillery as a business was incorporated in 2016 with building work starting in 2017, licences secured in 2018 and distilling starting the same year. Lochlea farm is home to Neil McGeoch and his family who has farmed the land on his farm since the early 2000’s.

The McGeoch family is well known in Scotland for being the owners of the clothing retail chain we now know as M&Co but was originally a pawnbroking business which has been in the same family since inception in 1834. M&Co went into administration earlier in 2023 taking a lot of head office jobs with it in my local area of Renfrewshire but while the company is gone the name lives on as a web only business with the IP and name bought by AK Retail.

Neil’s brother Andy was CEO of M&Co with his brother also a director. Companies House shows Andy has now joined his brother as a director of Lochlea alongside John Campbell of Laphroiag fame who joined just before bottles started to hit shelves. Incidentally though Andy isn’t only involved with Lochlea, he is also the man behind KingsInch Whisky and Glaswegin….gin.

The Whisky

The “Our Barley” bottle is the core product in the Lochlea range at the moment. This is the one batched whisky which will be a constant in the lineup through the next few years at least. Bottled at 46% with natural colour and like the name suggests using the local farm barley.

In terms of the constituent parts there is a mix of first-fill Bourbon, Oloroso Sherry casks and what is called STR casks. STR being an exciting name for taking an older cask which is feeling tired and Rejuvenating it Scrapping back the inside to fresher looking wood and reToasting it like you would with new virgin casks.

Tasting Notes

By using first-fill Bourbon barrels, Oloroso Sherry butts and STR Barriques, the nose opens up with a burst of pear syrup and fruit bon bone, followed by hints of zesty marmalade and cinnamon. The palate shows the signature Lochlea fresh fruit and cereal, with a luscious golden syrup. Finally, it shifts to macadamia nuts, cream soda and a lovely tasting orange beeswax note

official notes from the bottle

Colour – bright but natural orange

Nose – tinned fruit complete with its syrupy goodness, tart rinds of citric fruits

Palate – with time and water the texture and heart come out of this. The darker fruit and nut notes evaporate off and leave the path open to thick caramel and vanilla ice-cream

Finish – It’s easy to think a young whisky would have a short finish and here it’s not the case. Long and satisfying length with a nutty candy core

Conclusion

I went on a bit of a journey with this one. I do think the mixture of first-fill bourbon, STR and some sherry is getting very much the recipe of choice for all these first offering from the new breed of distilleries. I guess there aren’t too many other options but it does feel a bit same old same old.

Having said that though as the bottle went down and I left it two thirds empty for 4 or 5 months it really came into its own and the high quality casks and interesting underlying young spirit pushed past the evaporated out top notes. A great and interesting future awaits Lochlea I think and I will be checking out future bottles in the range when they appear at reasonable prices.