Eden Mill

SCOTCH SINGLE MALT WHISKIES > E

EDEN MILL DISTILLERY

Eden Mill Distillery is located near the town of St. Andrews on the site of the former Seggie distillery, operated by the Haig family between 1810 and 1860.

Eden Mill is the brainchild of Paul Miller who worked at Coors, The Glenmorangie Plc and I.D.V. (International Distillers & Vintners).

Set up in 2012 as Eden Brewery and after he had met David Lang and Tony Reeman - Clark of the new Strathearn distillery he started Eden Mill distillery September 2014.

Brewing capacity is 20 barrel and he is able to produce enough wash for distillation.

Paul Miller has bought 3 pot stills from Hoga in Portugal and can produce 80.000 litres a year.

First gin is making.

3 different new - make spirits are produced: St, Andrews Day Single Malt Spirit from pale malt, Hogmanay Single Malt Spirit from pale- and chocolate malt and Robert Burns Day Single Malt Spirit made from pale-, crystal- and brown malt.

Eden Mill distils from Golden Promise, grown by Francis Cuthbert, owner of Daftmill Distillery.

The output is going in ex - Oloroso, American and French oak cask,

The first whisky will be released in November 2017,

The Malt is Unpeated

Mashtun Semi - lauter with a capacity of 3330 litres

Wasbacks: 2 x stainless steel with a total capacity of 13.300 litres

Fermentation: 2 / 3 days

Wash stills: 2 x 900 litres charge

Spirit still: 1 x 900 litres charge

Eden Mill leans heavily on its heritage as a brewer when it comes to defining the style of its single malt Scotch whisky by choosing malts inherent to beer in its mash: pale malt, chocolate malt and crystal malt. While many claim barley varieties have little impact on a whisky’s flavour, Eden Mill is adamant the difference in the new make is quite discernable.

EDEN MILL LAUNCHES ITS FIRST SINGLE MALTS

24 April 2018

Eden Mill is launching its first single malts since distilling began at the Fife brewery and distillery in 2014.

Eden Mill's Hip Flask Series

Seven dwarves: Eden Mill’s Hip Flask Series is available in 20cl bottles

The distillery in Guardbridge, St Andrews, has created seven single malts using various mashbills and casks for its new Hip Flask Series.

The seven small batch expressions, available in 20cl bottles at 47% abv, feature a combination of pale, chocolate, brown and crystal malt, and have been matured in virgin oak octaves (50 litres) and PX or oloroso Sherry hogsheads.

Just 3,800 bottles are available, priced at £25 each.

Paul Miller, co-founder of Eden Mill, said: ‘Each expression in the Hip Flask Series contains liquid matured in what we call ‘honey casks’ – first-fill and virgin oak casks that we’ve hand-selected from all around the world, from Speyside to Spain.

‘As each cask only holds a small amount of liquid, releasing smaller bottles of each is a way for as many whisky fans as possible to discover a taste of what’s to come.

‘The Hip Flask Series is about applying the pioneering and experimental nature synonymous with Eden Mill to single malt whisky, showing the power of trying different grains, processes, maturation techniques and woods to highlight what you can do differently within the realm of single malt Scotch whisky.’

Additional expressions in the series will be released in the coming months, including peated, Port and wine cask-matured bottlings.

Small batch: Much of Eden Mill’s output is filled into small 50-litre octave casks

The Hip Flask Series has been launched alongside a special edition single malt bottling for staff and members of the Eden Mill Cask Club, while a 2018 Limited Edition Single Malt will be released later this summer for the general public. Those purchasing a bottle from the Hip Flask Series will be given the opportunity to be among the first to join the waiting list to acquire a bottle.

The Eden Mill 2018 Limited Edition, which will be available for £75, has been distilled from a pale malt mash and matured in a combination of Bourbon barrels and PX and oloroso Sherry hogsheads. It will be bottled at 47% abv.

Scott Ferguson, head distiller at Eden Mill, said: ‘We’re just waiting for the Bourbon casks to come of age in July before we can release our 2018 single malt,’ he said.

‘The whisky will have a candied, light barley sugar and cream soda character from the Bourbon casks, but tied down without becoming overly sweet with rich spiciness from the Sherried hogsheads.’

The announcement of Eden Mill’s first single malt releases follows news earlier this year of a £4 million investment in expanding the distillery into new premises metres away from the current site in Guardbridge.

Miller said: ‘St Andrews has a rich history when it comes to whisky, and now over a century and a half later we’re picking it up where it left off – on the site of the old Seggie distillery that Eden Mill now stands on.’

Seggie was a single malt and grain distillery once operated by the famous Haig family, which closed in 1860.

Today the St Andrews region is also home to Kingsbarns distillery, a single malt site owned by the family behind Wemyss Malts.

The seven expressions in the Hip Flask Series include:

Hip Flask Series No.1:

Pale malt mash, matured in a French virgin octave

Hip Flask Series No.2:

Chocolate malt (8%) and pale malt (92%) mash, matured in a virgin American oak octave

Hip Flask Series No.3:

Brown and crystal malt (8%) and pale malt (92%) mash matured in a virgin American oak octave

Hip Flask Series No.4:

Pale malt mash matured in a virgin French oak octave

Hip Flask Series No.5: ‘

Frankenstein Malt Bill’ (brown and crystal malt (33%), chocolate malt (33%) and pale malt (34%) matured in a virgin American oak octave

Hip Flask Series No.6:

Pale malt mash matured in an oloroso Sherry hogshead

Hip Flask Series No.7:

Pale malt mash matured in a PX Sherry hogshead

PAUL MILLER

May 2018

The founder and CEO of Scotland’s only combined brewery and distillery, which only began distilling whisky in 2014, speaks about chocolate malt, Eden Mill’s first single malt whiskies and tourism in Fife.

Malt mechanic: Paul Miller wants to ‘lift the bonnet’ on the brewing and distilling process

‘We were really conscious of criticism of high-ticket first bottle launches, and we wanted to get our limited amount of juice out to as many people as we could, so we decided to do smaller bottles of really interesting single cask expressions for what we’re calling the Hipflask series. Really this is the thing we want to be famous for, the fact that we do interesting things.

‘We’ll release another three or four bottles in a few months and another few after that, and it will just be an ongoing thing whenever we find some interesting casks. We’ve already got some Port casks, some pale malt, some very peated malt and different wine casks lined up.

‘We’ll keep the price at around £25 for 20cl and then that way people are able to afford that and get something different. There will be cheaper whiskies in the market, but it’s something different and a bit interesting, and not a crazy price.

‘I’ve been in the industry for 37 years; started out with Oddbins, then worked on IDV, which is Diageo now, I guess. I worked there for 10 years, a lot of that time in new product development, but not directly involved in whisky. Then I moved to Glenmorangie, but in those days it was called Macdonald and Muir. I worked there when they bought Ardbeg and released the different wood finishes, so it was a really exciting and interesting time.

‘Initially when we bought Ardbeg I was wondering what we’d paid £7m for, then we were spending another £7m on developing the visitor centre, and initially I thought it was mad. But the very first time I went to taste Ardbeg in Sweden, I realised how unbelievably passionate Ardbeg’s followers were, and just what an absolute gem it was. It was the ultimate steal in terms of paying that amount of money for something with that potential.

Eden Mill’s first commercially available whiskies were launched in a 20cl ‘Hipflask’ format

‘Ironically, the inspiration for creating Eden Mill actually came from Pete Coors, who owns the biggest brewery in the world. At 3am in the old Coors Hotel, he said to me: “Paul, tomorrow can you take me to the nearest distillery or brewery, because I’m not going to play golf tomorrow?” and I couldn’t think where the nearest distillery or brewery was, and I’ve lived in Fife most of my life.

‘Finding this site was a little bit of needs must. I spent nearly two years looking for the right site near St Andrews to make whisky. We stumbled across this old industrial site that the university had bought; it was lying decaying and there was no real certainty about what they were going to do with it. So I went along and persuaded them to let me in and start making beer, and they said: “Look, start something small because we’re going to have to move you once we’ve agreed what our plan is for the site.”

‘So we could only really start a small brewery knowing we’d have to move, but what was really quickly evident was we had loads of people really interested in coming and buying something that was authentically made in St Andrews, and enjoy a visitor experience that was more than just golf.

‘That then meant that, even though the university wasn’t certain about where we were going to be, we knew we had to build a small distillery because that was an opportunity early. So we decided to create an interim solution, to create a microdistillery where we could make single malt whisky and align it with making beer as well. Gin at that time was just beginning to become really interesting, and we felt we could do something with gin as well.

‘When we originally started looking we had no idea this was the site of the old Seggie distillery. It was pure chance; good luck. A few people came and told us it had been a big distillery in the past. We were actually at that time – because we were a brewery – more interested in the fact that it had originally been a brewery. Then, when we dug a bit deeper, we found all the archives of the financial comings and goings of the Haig family back in the day, which are in themselves an interesting read.

‘Eden Mill is the only single-site brewery and distillery in Scotland. I don’t know why that is. It’s quite hard to run the two side-by-side, although they’re complementary. Perhaps the complexity puts most people off, but we think it’s part of the charm.

‘Being able to use different mash bills that include some of the barley types that are used for brewing in creating our spirit is interesting and quite quirky. We’ve got a team of really passionate brewers and distillers. Brewing gives them the opportunity to get the fruits of their labours very quickly, whereas making whisky you’ve got significantly longer to make that.

‘The area of our different malt types was something the SWA [Scotch Whisky Association] were concerned about insofar as they couldn’t be certain that they wouldn’t dramatically alter the flavour of the spirit. So they’d said they weren’t too happy about us using chocolate malt to a significant extent. It adjusts the flavour no more than a particular cask type would do, so for us we just need to try and ensure we get the balance right in terms of the chocolate malt we use within the mash bill or spirit we’re making.

‘What we’ll typically do is distil the chocolate malt out and add a percentage of it to create a blend which we then put into a cask. That means we are a little bit more in control of the impact on the spirit. We feel that way we can provide something that is clearly fitting within the Scotch whisky criteria.

‘I’m not sure how they police this; I don’t know who is the ultimate arbiter of what does and doesn’t reflect Scotch whisky. We will do what we think is reasonable in the context of our vast experience with whisky, and hopefully people will be happy with that. It’s not as cut and dried as with labels, where the rules are really clear. The rules regarding the flavour profile of whisky are probably a bit more of a grey area, and the proof will be in the eating.

‘The exciting thing about moving to the new site [at the back of the existing distillery] is that we will be able to produce a lot of our standard single malt. We want to keep our three small stills so we can still do the interesting and slightly weird stuff there as well. Consumers are quite promiscuous and want to try the next interesting thing, and what we take great delight in is opening up the bonnet and showing people how it all works, and letting them see it for real when they come on our tours.

‘Up until recently, a very small number – about less than 10% of the people who come to visit us – are whisky drinkers, mainly because we haven’t really pushed the whisky aspect of things and we haven’t really had a list of whiskies to sell. Now the challenge is that there are fantastic distilleries out there doing great whisky experiences, and so we need to offer something special and different that they can’t get anywhere else.

‘I personally love being here [at the distillery] and working here, but I don’t get the chance to do it often enough. Mainly because I can’t actually work here, because if a tour’s going on I actually want to talk to folk. I have this maybe slightly misplaced arrogance that I add value to their tour if I come in and say hello and we have a wee chat about something. I love that interaction piece and it seems to go down well.

Gin: Eden Mill

Fife’s Eden Mill Brewery was established in 2012, but with the addition of distilling equipment became Scotland’s first combined brewery and distillery in 2014.

Its first release was Eden Mill Hop Gin (46% abv; £32), made with the Australian Galaxy hops used in its beer, but the fledgling site has gone on to present an enviable range of gins and gin liqueurs in flask-style bottles.

The core range now includes Eden Mill Original Gin (42% abv; £35), a London dry style made using sea buckthorn berries grown near St Andrews; Love Gin (42% abv; £30), a pale pink gin made with rose petals and hibiscus; Golf Gin (42% abv; £30), containing botanicals inspired by the St Andrews golf course, such as seaweed, pine needles, gorse flower and heather; and Oak Gin (42% abv; £30), which has been aged on oak chips made from the brewery’s beer barrels.

Earlier this year, Eden Mill introduced its inaugural single malt, a limited edition three-year-old matured in Bourbon barrels and PX and oloroso Sherry hogsheads.

Guardbridge’s Eden Mill is Scotland’s first combined brewery and distillery, producing beer, hopped gin and single malt whisky.

The famous Haig family first founded a distillery at Guardbridge, Fife, in 1810. William Haig, the father of John Haig who founded Cameronbridge, built Seggie Distillery in the village’s Main Street. The distillery remained in operation until 1860, when the Haigs, who were doing a roaring trade with Cameronbridge grain distillery, envisaged a better use for the facility as a paper mill. After 50 years in operation, distilling ceased at Seggie and the site was reopened as the Guard Bridge Paper Mill. At the height of its operation in the 1950s, the paper mill employed some 600 people from the surrounding area and had become a key business in Fife.

In 1967 Curtis Fine Papers became owner of the mill after merging with Guard Bridge Power. The site continued to operate as a paper mill until 2008 when Curtis Fine Papers went into administration, making 180 people redundant.

The site lay empty and disused for two years before it was eventually bought by St Andrews University, which had a view to create a biomass facility that would power new businesses situated on-site.

In 2012 Fife businessman Paul Miller opened Eden Brewery at the site, and after installing an artisan still began producing hopped gin and single malt whisky in 2014. Rebranded as Eden Mill, the site has become the first combined brewery-distillery in Scotland.

The distillery has committed to keeping its whisky output small, filling just eight barrels per week. Eventually its whisky will be available in three different styles: pale malt, chocolate malt and crystal malt, all of which are matured in a variety of cask types. While it waits for the malt spirit to mature, Eden Mill is offering 500ml bottles of its liquid at one and two years old. A select number of bespoke private casks are also available.

CAPACITY (MLPA) i

100.000 Ltrs

FERMENTATION TIME i

3-4 days

FILLING STRENGTH i

63.5% Hogshead; 58% Octaves

GRIST WEIGHT (T) i

0.9

HEAT SOURCE i

Steam

MALT SPECIFICATION i

Golden Promise

MALT SUPPLIER i

Simpsons

MASH TUN TYPE i

Toscana combi mash/lauter tun

NEW-MAKE STRENGTH i

69-71%

SINGLE MALT PERCENTAGE i

100%

SPIRIT STILL CHARGE (L) i

850

SPIRIT STILL SHAPE i

Alembic

SPIRIT STILL SIZE (L) i

1,000

STILLS i

WAREHOUSING i

On-site

WASH STILL CHARGE (L) i

800

WASH STILL SHAPE i

Alembic

WASH STILL SIZE (L) i

1,000

WASHBACK CHARGE (L) i

17,400 and 5,800

WASHBACK TYPE i

Dished bottom and cylindro conical fermenter

WASHBACKS i

YEAST TYPE i

Nottingham Ale; DY502 Anchor Dry

Paul Miller

2012 - present

EDEN MILL WHISKY MARKS ST ANDREW’S DAY

November 2018

Fife brewery and distillery Eden Mill has released a limited edition single malt in celebration of St Andrew’s Day today (30 November).

St Andrew’s malt: The limited edition is Eden Mill’s second whisky release

Just 3,200 bottles of the no age statement single malt have been produced as the first instalment in what will become an annual series.

The Eden Mill 2018 St Andrew’s single malt is a vatting of whisky distilled from Golden Promise and Propino barley matured for ‘three to four years’ in a selection of cask types, including ex-oloroso Sherry hogsheads, ex-Bourbon barrels, and ex-Sherry octave casks.

Bottled at 46.5% abv, it’s described as having ‘sweet and juicy notes of peach and plum’ with a ‘light fruitcake character’.

Paul Miller, co-founder of Eden Mill, said: ‘This release is the first in an annual series, which will build over the coming years and we thought it was only appropriate to launch the 2018 Single Malt on St Andrew’s Day.’

The bottling is the second single malt from Eden Mill, whose inaugural First Release was launched in May this year.

The first 200 bottles were gifted to Eden Mill employees, or auctioned online, with bottle number one breaking the world auction record for the highest price paid for a single bottle from a new distillery, when it sold for £7,100.

Of the 3,200 bottles of Eden Mill 2018 St Andrew’s malt released, around 2,000 will be available to purchase in the UK from select retailers for £79.

A special delivery of the bottles was made earlier today via a convoy of Rolls Royce Phantoms to two St Andrews hotels, The Old Course and the Fairmont.3 different new - make spirits are produced: St, Andrews Day Single Malt Spirit from pale malt, Hogmanay Single Malt Spirit from pale- and chocolate malt and Robert Burns Day Single Malt Spirit made from pale-, crystal- and brown malt.

Eden Mill distils from Golden Promise, grown by Francis Cuthbert, owner of Daftmill Distillery.

The output is going in ex - Oloroso, American and French oak cask,

The first whisky will be released in November 2017,

The Malt is Unpeated

Mashtun Semi - lauter with a capacity of 3330 litres

Wasbacks: 2 x stainless steel with a total capacity of 13.300 litres

Fermentation: 2 / 3 days

Wash stills: 2 x 900 litres charge

Spirit still: 1 x 900 litres charge

Paul Miller established the Eden Mill distillery in 2012 on the banks of the Eden Estuary in St Andrews, it was the first distillery to make spirits in the region in over 150 years. Today, Eden Mill has a wonderful premium gin portfolio crafted from the finest botanicals, many foraged from here in and around St Andrews and a unique selection of limited release single malts.

Moving forward, Eden Mill have an ambition to create the finest gins and Scotch whiskies with minimal environmental impact combining traditional distilling techniques with ground-breaking innovation. Eden Mill are building a stunning distillery at the mouth of the River Eden, overlooking the iconic, historic town of St Andrews. The new distillery sits at the heart of the University of St Andrews Eden Campus, a unique site dedicated to zero carbon and sustainable businesses and research.