Hello my name is Peter Holroyd, I’m the distillery manager here at Kingsbarns Distillery in the East Neuk of Fife. I’ve been here since the very beginning of the project back in 2014 where we were actually installing the stills and all of the rest of the equipment. What I quite like to do, and what I love doing in tours myself, is show people some of the aspects of what makes Kingsbarns, Kingsbarns. Why we take some of the steps that we do with quality at the heart of everything we do, so I’m going to share with you one or two little aspects that make the difference in defining our spirit quality.
One of the fantastic things about Scotch whisky is the variety and complexity that you can get. So when you start a distillery, you don’t just cobble together all of the pipe work and all of the tanks, turn it on and see what comes out the other side. It’s very important to be meticulous about each and every aspect of the process. Here at Kingsbarns we aim to make a very light, and fruity and floral style of whisky, something that you might call a Lowland style, but we wanted it to be full of fruity character, that was the main thing.
So, even through a choice of raw materials, we’re using Fife grown barley, we’re using water sourced from an aquifer below our distillery site and then we’re maturing everything in Fife as well. So not only do we find the style that we were aiming for the target, but we also wanted to give it some provenance, give it a sense of place.
And the culmination of the team's effort is in this, our flagship malt, Kingsbarns Dream to Dram. Made up of 90% first fill bourbon barrels and 10% shaved toasted recharged casks from Portugal.
This is going to be a series, to tell you a little bit more about Kingsbarns, I hope you’ve enjoyed Part one and I look forward to sharing more with you in the parts to follow.