Lagg

SCOTCH SINGLE MALT WHISKIES > L

LAGG also see LOCHRANZA, ISLE OF ARRAN

LAGG DISTILLERY OFFICIALLY BEGINS PRODUCTION

April 2019

Isle of Arran Distillers’ new Lagg distillery has officially started production, having filled its first cask of maturing spirit earlier this month.

Lagg distillery in final stages of construction

Lagging behind: Although distilling has already begun, construction at Lagg is still in its final stages

The distillery, located on Arran’s southern tip near the village of Lagg, recorded its first spirit cut on 19 March and officially filled its first cask on 10 April.

Cask #1 is a Sherry butt filled with Lagg’s heavily peated spirit measured at 50ppm, at a strength of 63.5% abv.

The Sherried single malt will eventually be bottled and presented to members of the Lagg Cask Society – a club reserved for those who have purchased a cask of Lagg’s maturing whisky for £6,000.

Lagg master distiller James MacTaggart said: ‘It’s incredibly exciting to be taking the very first steps in producing what will eventually be a magnificent Lagg whisky, something truly unique to anything we’ve produced previously.’

The single malt is expected to mature into a ‘rich, earthy and smoky’ whisky, which will be ‘very different in character to what the distillers currently produce at the original distillery in Lochranza’, which is based on the island’s northernmost point.

Originally scheduled to open to the public in 2018, construction work is still ongoing at Lagg, which is now expected to open to visitors early summertime.

By next year, footfall across both the Lagg and Lochranza sites is expected to exceed 200,000 visitors

While Arran’s classic whisky style is unpeated, the distillery at Lochranza distils a small amount of peated malt every year for its Machrie Moor expression. In opening Lagg distillery on the south side of the island, Isle of Arran Distillers will shift all production of peated whisky to its new site, a distillery that will be dedicated to the exploration of peat.

Lagg single malt itself will be a heavily peated style, made using barley with a phenol content of 50ppm. While all barley will be malted on the mainland, the peat used to dry the barley will be sourced from all across Scotland, perhaps even the world, as Lagg explores the impact of peat terroir on whisky flavour.

Experimentation won’t stop there – Lagg will work with various yeast strains and barley varieties as it ‘plays around’ with different aspects of the production process. Despite its focus on innovation, Lagg will be a sizeable operation, capable of producing 500,000 litres of spirit each year.

With 140 apple trees already planted on the surrounding estate, Lagg will also produce its own cider and apple brandy, rather than follow the rest of the ‘craft’ Scottish distilling movement and produce gin.

Before Arran distillery commenced production in 1995, there hadn’t been a legal distillery on the Hebridean island since 1837. While Isle of Arran Distillers’ first distillery came to life toward the end of a downturn for the Scotch industry, its second is being realised in a boom period.

In 2017, some 22 years after Arran distillery opened at Lochranza on the north side of the island, groundwork began at Lagg in the south.

Phase one saw the immediate build of three new warehouses to provide maturation facilities for both distilleries, while construction of the new site began in November 2017.

Lagg distillery eventually took its first spirit cut on 19 March 2019 at 14.35pm, and filled its first cask on 10 April, a Sherry butt which will be reserved exclusively for members of the Lagg Cask Society.

Construction is still ongoing at the distillery, and the visitor centre is not expected to open until summer 2019.

CAPACITY (MLPA) i

750.000 Ltrs

CONDENSER TYPE i

Shell and tube

FERMENTATION TIME i

72 hours

FILLING STRENGTH i

63.5%

GRIST WEIGHT (T) i

4 tonnes

HEAT SOURCE i

Steam

MALT SPECIFICATION i

Concerto barley, 50ppm

MALT SUPPLIER i

Crisp Malt

MASH TUN TYPE i

Semi-lauter

NEW-MAKE STRENGTH i

68.8%

SINGLE MALT PERCENTAGE i

100%

SPIRIT STILL CHARGE (L) i

7,000

SPIRIT STILL SHAPE i

Lamp glass

SPIRIT STILL SIZE (L) i

7,000

STILLS i

WAREHOUSING i

Racked and palletised

WASH STILL CHARGE (L) i

10,000

WASH STILL SHAPE i

Bulbous onion

WASH STILL SIZE (L) i

10,000

WASHBACK SIZE (L) i

20,000

WASHBACK TYPE i

Douglas fir

WASHBACKS i

WATER SOURCE i

Borehole

WORT CLARITY i

Cloudy

YEAST TYPE i

Kerry M strain

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WHISKY MAKERS REDISCOVER BERE BARLEY

Bere barley has been grown in Scotland for at least 1,000 years, and probably much longer. Now this ancient crop is being revived – and whisky is playing its part.

Oldest inhabitant: Bere barley has been grown in Orkney for up to 4,000 years

The exposed fields of Orkney are hardly ideal arable farming country. Bleak and windswept, with an all-too-brief growing season, it’s little surprise that conventional barley varieties struggle to ripen here. Better to keep a few cattle, or sheep.

And yet barley is grown in Orkney; barley of a particular type. It’s a distinctive, tall, six-row crop with an annoying tendency to ‘lodge’ – the flattening effect seen when the stems bend over to the ground. But at least you can get it ripe.

This is bere barley, and it’s been in Orkney for at least a millennium, and probably for much longer. ‘Bere is probably the oldest cultivated barley, definitely in Britain and probably one of the oldest still in cultivation in Europe,’ says Peter Martin, director of the Agronomy Institute at Orkney College, part of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI).

The name ‘bere’ – pronounced ‘bear’ – is close to the Anglo-Saxon for barley, and it is also sometimes referred to as ‘bigg/bygg/bygge’, from the Old Norse word for the crop.

‘Exactly how old is it? We don’t know,’ admits Martin. ‘It’s definitely been grown here for 1,000 years, but there may be evidence further back in the archaeological record. Barley has been grown in Orkney as far back as 4,000BC and the introduction of agriculture.’

In contrast to modern, scientifically bred barley varieties, bere is a ‘landrace’, meaning it has gradually evolved and adapted to local growing conditions as successive generations of farmers choose the seeds from the best plants for the following year’s crop, in a kind of human-assisted process of natural selection.

Distinctive character: Bere barley is a six-row, rather than two-row, barley variety

So bere grows rapidly during the long summer days of northern latitudes, ripening three weeks before modern varieties, despite being planted as late as May. This minimises the risk of crop failure caused by poor weather at either end of the growing season. Bere also tolerates a wide variety of poor-quality soils, from acidic and peat-rich to sandy and alkaline.

And yet, 20 years ago, it was all but extinct, rendered apparently obsolete by higher-yielding modern malting varieties such as Concerto and Odyssey. By the start of the 21st century, there was as little as 10 hectares of bere grown in Scotland, by a handful of farmers on Orkney, Shetland and in the Western Isles.

Revival came, initially, through baking. Barony Mill, a 19th-century Orkney watermill, began using beremeal (flour) to make bannocks, biscuits and bread. From 2002, the UHI started researching bere’s characteristics and end uses – including brewing and distillation.

But making whisky with bere barley is nothing new. It was used extensively in the past; for example, during the boom years of Campbeltown, as ‘gauger’ or exciseman Joseph Pacy discovered when he was posted there in 1834:

‘The peat-dried malt from which this whiskey was produced was made from grain designated in Scotland “Bere or Bigg”, a small kind of barley grown on the light sandy soil of that country. The tax on that description of malt was something like one-fifth less than that on malt made from [modern] barley, a kind of boon or protection to the grower of this lighter kind of grain.’
(The Reminiscences of a Gauger, Imperial Taxation, Past and Present Compared, pp.66-67)

Bere experts: Peter Martin (right) and John Wishart of the UHI have conducted extensive research

As demand soared and supplies ran short on Kintyre, distillers tried to pass off conventional barley from Ireland as bere in order to reap the tax benefits. Pacy investigated, the culprits were fined and forfeited their malt – and the gauger became deeply unpopular with the locals as a result.

Orkney distillery Highland Park’s barley books record purchases of bere back to the 1880s, and as late as the early 1920s – but there the whisky trail for bere goes cold for more than half a century.

When bere whisky resurfaces, it is as a curiosity: a one-off independent bottling by the late Michel Couvreur of bere barley grown on Westray, floor-malted at Highland Park and distilled at Edradour in 1986, which was released in the mid-1990s.

In 2004, Isle of Arran Distillers collaborated with the UHI on a whisky made with Orkney bere, bottling the result at eight and 10 years, while Springbank has worked with Kintyre-grown bere periodically, including a 2013 distillate scheduled for release in 2028 to mark the Campbeltown distillery’s bicentenary.

The biggest champion of bere whisky today, however, is Bruichladdich. Following the Islay’s distillery’s revival in 2001, bere’s status as an outlier barley variety ticking the boxes of heritage, provenance and terroir was hugely appealing. Bere was planted on Islay in 2005, but it never took; the project was abandoned in 2009, with the last years’ failed crops used for animal feed.

Since then, the distillery has sourced its bere, through Martin and the UHI, from a handful of Orkney farmers, resulting in a succession of releases, including most recently the Bruichladdich Bere Barley 2010 single malt launched in August.

Tall and heavy: As a ‘landrace’, bere barley has evolved to adapt to local growing conditions

But it hasn’t been easy. ‘It broke the mash tun the first time we worked with it,’ says Bruichladdich communications manager Christy McFarlane. ‘The husk is so hard. We’ve had to reduce the tonnage. And it gets stuck in the mill.’

It was a similar story on Arran, says Isle of Arran Distillers MD Euan Mitchell: ‘I do recall our distillery manager at the time, Gordon Mitchell, saying the bere malt was tricky to work with and clogged up the mash tun. His actual words were a bit coarser than that…’

Another drawn to the romance of bere was Alasdair Day, co-founder of Isle of Raasay distillery owner R&B Distillers. ‘The whole story resonated with me when we turned up on Raasay,’ he recalls. ‘I said: “We want to grow barley here.” The local crofter just fell off his chair laughing and said we couldn’t do that because it wouldn’t ripen.’

Day was vindicated – sort of. Bere was planted on Raasay in 2017, the year the distillery opened, and it did ripen. ‘It’s really hard to describe, but it just felt at home – like it was meant to grow there. It was really tall, with long straw and, as a six-row barley, really top-heavy.’

However, the crop went unharvested, thanks to a lack of the right infrastructure and machinery, and not helped by bere’s tendency to ‘lodge’ or flatten when battered by the Raasay elements.

‘It’s something I would go back to,’ says Day. ‘The holy grail is flavour, but as a young distillery you have to be aware of yield as well. If we had the infrastructure, I would certainly persevere.’

Bannock time: Barony Mill in Birsay, Orkney, was a pioneer of bere’s recent revival

Bere is expensive, both financially and in terms of lost spirit yield. The Arran bere malt was roughly twice the price of regular malt in the mid-2000s, and the spirit yield was 15% lower. That broadly reflects the experience at Bruichladdich – production director Allan Logan reckons bere’s tonnage per acre is about half that of conventional two-row barley.

‘The yield is also much less,’ adds McFarlane, ‘but we don’t really care, because it’s all about flavour.’

What flavour?

‘Full-on flavour. I’m quite certain that, in a blind taste test, people would be able to tell the difference, even after time in cask. There is this very unctuous, sweet, well-rounded quality to bere barley.’

Mitchell agrees. ‘The yield was quite low, but the resultant whisky was superb, particularly the cask strength version at 10 years old. Full of oils and a rich, gristy-malty flavour. It’s definitely a case of quirky flavours over high-yielding profitability.’

There are plans for Arran’s new Lagg distillery to work with bere in the future – Mitchell says it was the barley type used at the historic Lagg distillery – while Bruichladdich is continuing its commitment to bere, and to the Orkney farmers who grow it.

Bere has also returned to Islay, part of Bruichladdich’s extensive barley trials currently under way at Shore House Croft. So far, the signs have been far from encouraging, but it’s a long-term project.

Bere whisky: Bruichladdich is willing to pay more and sacrifice yield for the sake of flavour

But there’s much more to bere barley than whisky; more to it even than the bere beers brewed on Orkney, or Barony Mill’s bannocks and bread. Researchers are particularly interested in bere’s genetic diversity, which could help to future-proof cereal farming against issues related to climate change and food security.

‘There are some beres that seem to have a remarkable tolerance to growing on sandy soils with a deficiency of trace elements such as manganese, copper and zinc,’ explains Martin. ‘Beres on the Western Isles, but also in Orkney and Shetland, are able to grow on sandy soils without any additional applications of these trace elements. The modern variety just doesn’t grow – or it will grow, but not yield grain.’

In time, it is hoped that these unique traits could be bred into modern barley varieties, creating new bere hybrids with the ability to grow and ripen in a far wider variety of locations. Such a development, Martin says, could have global significance.

For whisky, the work of the International Barley Hub – due to open at the James Hutton Institute in Invergowrie in 2022 – will be pivotal. Even now, says Day, there are early signs of hybridisation occurring where bere is growing alongside modern malting barley variety Concerto. ‘The trick, I suppose,’ he adds, ‘will be to get bere’s earliness with shorter straw and better yields.’

If that can be accomplished, without sacrificing the distinctive flavour and texture that make bere so attractive to whisky makers, then we could soon see its plantings expand out of Orkney to Raasay, Islay and beyond; and the future of this historic – maybe prehistoric – barley will be brighter than ever.

Lagg Distillery announce release of first single malt whisky

The first whisky from Lagg Distillery will be released next month

July 25, 2022

Isle of Arran Distillers have officially announced their highly anticipated Inaugural Limited Edition Single Malt release from Lagg Distillery - a new heavily peated whisky distillery, located on the southern tip of the picturesque Isle of Arran.

Lagg Single Malt will officially be released from August 2022 in three separate limited-edition batches.

The whisky is described as robust, complex, and earthy with “west coast” style and brings a contemporary twist to traditional methods of producing peated whisky on Arran.

Lagg Distillery is the sister of independently owned Lochranza Distillery which was established at the north end of the island in 1995.

The building of the new distillery and its visitor centre was completed in 2019, and has received critical acclaim.

The architects designed a spectacular building that echoes the contours of Arran as you’d see it from Ailsa Craig.

The building also celebrates the unique geography of the surrounding environment by using dramatic roofs which are covered by a sedum blanket of seasonal plants.

The custom-made copper pot stills were installed in August 2018 and now sit proudly alongside the mash tun and four traditional wooden washbacks.

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The first middle cut of spirit was recorded at 14.35pm on Tuesday 19 March 2019, a new chapter in the history of whisky making for the southern shores of Arran.

A heavily peated whisky is being created at Lagg, and for the Inaugural Releases, the team have used Concerto malted barley, water from their own borehole and sourced peat from the highlands of Scotland.

The team at Lagg are also supporting local projects that are focused on preserving peatlands for the good of the planet.

Because of this, they plan to conduct thorough investigations into the effects that different types of peat sourced from different areas have on their spirit, and the distinctive phenols that they produce.

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They will also experiment with various cask types and observe how they interact with the Lagg spirit over time.

The new distillery manager is Graham Omand,, who worked as a stillman at Arran’s Lochranza Distillery for several years.

Graham will oversee the production of Lagg Single Malt and is very much looking forward to adding his own interpretation and style to the spirit to ensure it is of the highest possible quality.

He said: “It’s every stillman’s dream to be given such an amazing opportunity to manage a beautiful site like Lagg.

Lagg single malt

In July, Isle of Arran Distillers announced their highly anticipated Inaugural Limited Edition Single Malt release from Lagg Distillery - a new heavily peated whisky distillery, located on the southern tip of the picturesque Isle of Arran.

Lagg Single Malt was released from August 2022 in three separate limited-edition batches. The whisky is described as robust, complex, and earthy with “west coast” style and brings a contemporary twist to traditional methods of producing peated whisky on Arran.

Arran's Lagg Distillery launch first core range of single malt whiskies

Good news for fans of Lagg, as the island distillery will release two whiskies this spring.

March 13, 2023

Lagg Distillery on the Isle of Arran is set to launch its first ever core range single malts this spring, following the successful launch of the inaugural batch releases in autumn last year.

Lagg Single Malt Kilmory Edition

Coming in May this year, the first core range release from the independent distiller on the Isle of Arran will be the Lagg Single Malt Kilmory Edition.

This expression will become the flagship Single Malt from the island distiller, whose focus is on producing a peated Single Malt reminiscent of the style of whisky originally produced in illicit stills on the island, long before Lagg opened its doors in 2019.

The Kilmory Edition will be matured 100% in first-fill bourbon barrels and bottled at 46% ABV, without chill filtration and with no added colouring.

The influence of the peat combined with the vanilla and creamy influence of the American oak is vibrant and fresh and is the cornerstone of what Lagg Single Malt will have to offer in the future.

Kilmory is the named after the parish in which the small village of Lagg is situated.

Lagg Single Malt Corriecravie Edition

Arriving shortly after the Kilmory Edition, will be the second core range expression from Lagg - the Lagg Single Malt Corriecravie Edition.

The spirit of Corriecravie is matured initially in bourbon barrels before being finished in Oloroso sherry hogsheads - sourced directly from producer Miguel Martin in Jerez - for around six months. It is bottled at 55% ABV, without chill filtration and with no added colouring.

Corriecravie is named after a small hamlet just to the north-west of the village of Lagg.

It has beautiful sweeping views right along the southern coastline of the island, and it holds its own secrets of the past; its undulating terrain was home to some of the illicit stills that produced the infamous ‘Arran water’ in the days of early distilling on the island.

Just near the village there is the Torr a' Chaisteil Dun - a fort from the later Iron Age about 2000 years ago, locally known ‘Castle Hill’.

Corriecravie is also home to one of the most remote little playparks you will find on the island, and surely the one with the best views.

Of the new releases. Lagg Distillery Manager Graham Omand said: “The Kilmory expression embodies the ‘house style of Lagg’ which centres around the use of Bourbon Barrels with our peated spirit.

"The Corriecravie provides a real contrast, showing off a different side to the LAGG spirit, bringing to the fore notes of sweeter smoke, spices and rich fruits.

"These Single Malts are really rooted in the southside of Arran and their aromatic, peated character embodies the earthiness of the whiskies that would have been among the first to have been distilled on Arran hundreds of years ago.

"Today our Lagg Single Malts represent the spirit and respect for our land that the people here can’t wait to share with the wider world.

September 5, 2023

Lagg Distillery on the Isle of Arran have released the second edition of their core range of single malts - The Lagg Single Malt Corriecravie Edition.

This new release follows on from the huge success of their flagship single malt - The Kilmory Edition, which launched in June this year.

Taste profile of Lagg Corriecravie

The Lagg Single Malt Corriecravie Edition is matured initially in Bourbon barrels before being finished in Oloroso Sherry Hogsheads - sourced directly from producer Miguel Martin in Jerez - for around six months. It is bottled at 55% ABV, without chill filtration and with no added colouring.

The taste profile is slightly richer than their flagship Kilmory expression, showing off a different side to the Lagg spirit, bringing to the fore notes of sweeter spices and rich fruits.

The Corriecravie Edition is bottled in smaller quantities compared to the Kilmory edition.

Lagg Corriecravie

Lagg Distillery Manager Graham Omand said: “I am delighted to announce the official release of our Lagg Single Malt Corriecravie Edition, the second of our core range single malts that we are incredibly proud of and following the success from our flagship Single Malt, The Kilmory Edition.

"Today our Lagg Single Malts represent the spirit and respect for our land that the people here can’t wait to share with the wider world.”

Corriecravie is named for the small hamlet just to the northwest of the village of Lagg. It has beautiful sweeping views right along the southern coastline of the island.

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It holds its own secrets of the past; its undulating terrain was home to some of the illicit stills that produced the infamous ‘Arran water’ in the days of early distilling on the island.

Just near the village there is the Torr a' Chaisteil Dun - a fort from the later Iron Age about 2000 years ago, locally known ‘Castle Hill’.

Lagg Distillery is the sister of independently owned Lochranza Distillery which was established at the north end of the island in 1995.

The building of the new distillery and its visitor centre was completed in 2019.

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The architects have designed a building that echoes the contours of Arran as you’d see it from Ailsa Craig and celebrates the geography of the surrounding environment by using dramatic roofs which are covered by a sedum blanket of seasonal plants.

Lagg Distillery offers a fantastic range of tastings, tours and dining options, as well as a gift shop where you can purchase the new Lagg Single Malts and a range of their exclusive whiskies.

The whisky bar on the upper level in the Visitor Experience is the perfect place to relax and take in the panoramic views with whisky flights, chocolate pairings and grazing boards.

Lagg Corriecravie Edition is available now, priced at £64.99.