A wee gem in the Scottish whisky landscape. A small distillery with a big aspirations, this Fife-based distillery uses its own barley grown at Daftmill farm and water from its own well. Daftmill are a family-owned Lowland distillery, garnering a great deal of attention with each release. It released its first whisky in June 2018, but the casks that are maturing at this artisan company in the Kingdom of Fife have been turning heads for years.
Daftmill do not have many bottles available and are one of Scotland’s smallest malt whisky distilleries. From the 13 year wait for its inaugural release in 2018, to the forgotten traditional style of production, the farm distillery has garnered an almost cult-like following of whisky lovers around the world. A farm with centuries of history, Daftmill craft whisky with a high level of precision, overseeing the production from farm to glass.
Its first release was the 2005 12-year Inaugural Release, a run of just 629 bottles.
All the grain for Daftmill’s malts is produced on site, at the farm.
Daftmill is famous for an optical illusion that gave the distillery its name. To the onlooker, the water in the burn looks like it is somehow running uphill, and became known as the backward-running burn (stream). Hence, the “Daft” Burn.
History
The founders of Daftmill Distillery are brothers Francis and Ian Cuthbert, both sixth-generation farmers here in the beautiful Howe of Fife. The farm has been here for 1000 years, and the Cuthbert family reckon that they’re only third family to own it within that time. The farm has beef cattle, vegetable plots, and plenty of barley – most of which is regularly sold to the Edrington group for the likes of Macallan and Highland Park. It wasn’t until the new millennium that the idea of keeping some of the barley to make Daftmill’s own whisky became a viable commercial project. In 2003, the Cuthberts converted three of their buildings into a distillery, and were granted their licence to distill in 2005. It was great timing, as the global rise in demand for whisky was about to cause the biggest industry boom in decades.
Taste Profile
Daftmill is known for flavours of...
Pear
Floral Notes
Fruit
Nuttiness
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Strathmill
Strathmill Distillery similarly began as a mill, driven by water from the River Isla in Keith, Scotland.