Why the Spiritual Home of Scotch Whisky is Making Aqua Vitae

Various distilleries claim to the oldest distillery in Scotland, though it depends what your criteria are. Strathisla opened in 1786 and has operated continuously ever since. Glenturret and Bowmore opened even earlier than that, but both have had periods when they were closed.

The History of Lindores Abbey

However, the oldest known distillery in Scotland was operating at Lindores Abbey way back in 1494. We know this because there is written evidence to show that the Scottish king, James IV, commissioned Friar John Cor of the abbey to distill some Aqua Vitae for him. At the time there were monasteries all over Europe doing the same, using local botanicals, but this is the earliest recorded proof of distilling in Scotland. Aqua Vitae is, of course, the Water of Life, the original spirit.

The abbey had been founded in the late 12th century and was a prominent monastery, visited by several kings of both England and Scotland, till it eventually closed in 1559 and fell into the ruins that remain today.

Lindores Abbey Remerges

Fast forward to 1913 when local farmer John Howison bought Lindores Abbey Farm to add to the land he was already farming nearby. This also made him the Custodian of Lindores Abbey, responsible for the general maintenance of the abbey ruins, which his descendants still are today.

In 2001, someone knocked on the door of Howison’s grandson Ken, and asked if he could take a walk in the ruins. Ken said yes, and thought no more about it.

A few months later a book arrived in the post, a book called Scotland and its Whiskies by the acclaimed whisky and beer writer Michael Jackson. It was Jackson who had asked permission to walk in the ruins, and the book was inscribed: To Ken, see P 127 Michael Jackson 1 May 2001.

Ken’s son, Drew McKenzie Smith, the present Custodian of Lindores Abbey, takes up the story, “On page 127 was a great photo of the abbey and the chapter begins with the line ‘For the whisky-lover it is a pilgrimage.’ It goes on to describe Jackson wandering about the ancient property, saying a happy but silent St Dionysian prayer of thanks to Friar John Cor of Lindores Abbey. This was the first we knew about any connection to whisky, let alone being described as the spiritual home of Scotch whisky!”

Jackson’s visit, and the book, planted a seed in Drew McKenzie Smith’s mind. He began to wonder about re-introducing distilling to Lindores Abbey. He eventually decided to build a distillery on the family farm land, directly across the road from the abbey ruins where the original distilling would have taken place. The name Lindores means “the church by the water” and the abbey was built on land overlooking the River Tay, an hour or so’s drive north of Edinburgh.

Lindores Abbey Distillery Inaugural cask of whisky Drew Mackenzie Smith on the left

Lindores Abbey Today

It’s very much a family business too, as McKenzie Smith explains, “I am the Managing Director and my wife Helen is the Brand Home Director. Our elder daughter Poppy does our PR and our younger daughter Gee answers the phones. My sister Jane is our membership custodian, and her husband Ross is our Head Gardener, assisted by my younger brother Robbie. And I mustn’t forget my niece Charley, who is our resident beekeeper!”

This is no family-hobby business, however. The first spirit was distilled in December 2017 and is now on sale as their flagship MCDXCIV whisky, the Latin numerals for that famous date, 1494. The barley all comes from within half a mile of the distillery, all grown on abbey lands, while the water is from a 300-feet (90m) borehole, also on abbey lands. The single-malt spirit was distilled in December 2017 and released in July 2021 after 3.5 years of maturation in a mix of bourbon, wine, and sherry casks.

Beyond Whisky

Whereas most distilleries would also have released a conventional gin and vodka to bring in some cash while their whisky was aging, Lindores has released a New Mark Spirit, and their own take on the original Aqua Vitae.

But why the offbeat Aqua Vitae when gin and vodka are much easier to produce and to sell? “When the project started gathering momentum,” Drew Mackenzie-Smith says, “the question I was most asked was: ‘Will you be doing a gin?’ And there are times I wished we had, but at the time I always said: No. If the first spirit to come from Lindores after several hundred years was a gin (and we know the monks didn’t make a gin) then we would be selling ourselves short.”

He adds, “But we needed a product whilst our whisky matured, and it always seemed obvious (to me anyway) that the product should be Aqua Vitae. After all, that was what Friar John Cor produced back in 1494, so it seemed a no-brainer to me, though I’m not quite sure the bank manager would agree as the gin market is still booming!”

Mackenzie-Smith also originally wanted to make the Aqua Vitae as historically accurate as possible. “We worked with the students on the world’s leading brewing and distilling course at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. We knew what plants grew at Lindores centuries ago (through our books on Lindores) and we kept experimenting. But whilst we were being historically accurate, the bottom line was that the spirit itself didn’t taste great!” He adds, “The game-changer was when we started working with the bartenders and mixologists in Edinburgh, and that was when we started sweetening the spirit slightly with dates and raisins, and bringing in some spices like cinnamon, which the monks of Lindores could have accessed through their trade with the merchants in Flanders, who would have journeyed up the spice route from Venice.”

So that’s how the Aqua Vitae evolved as a botanical spirit drink that can be drunk like a whisky or in a long serve with ginger ale, ice, and a wedge of orange, or also as a whisky replacement in highballs and other whisky-based cocktails.

The Lindores Abbey Preservation Society

The fact that the new distillery is inextricably linked with the abbey and its history is also indicated by Mackenzie Smith’s creation of the 1494 Membership Club and the Lindores Abbey Preservation Society. Membership of the club is limited to 1494 members, who each pay £1,494 (about $2,000), which brings them the first chance to buy future limited edition bottlings, and other perks typical of a distillery’s private members club.

In addition to that, though, part of the payment goes to the Preservation Society. I ask Mackenzie Smith what society’s plans are. “Actually just this morning I completed our Management Plan where we’ll be working alongside HES (Historic Environment Scotland) to preserve what remains of the Abbey and make it safe for visitors. We’ve been looking after the Abbey for many years, but this puts it on a much more secure basis using specialists to work on the stone and mortar, and cut back the ivy, with a view to preserving the ruins for generations to come.”

He adds that Alongside this, “We’ll be planting more orchards, and when and where possible we’ll get in experts to run demonstrations of weaving, thatching, calligraphy and so on, to show what the monks were practicing here all those years ago.”

Produce from the planned apple, pear, and plum orchards may also be used to create future releases of Aqua Vitae, in the same way that the monks would have done 500 years ago and more. And talking of monks, what does Mackenzie Smith think that Friar John Cor would make of the new distillery if he were to come back today.
“I like to think he would be very impressed!” he says. “He was a Tironensian monk, and they were famous for using the very latest techniques. The first record of salmon fishing with yairs on the River Tay was the Lindores monks. It was a modern technique brought over from Europe.”

Yairs were wooden platforms built over the river, on which a netsman would sit with a purse net suspended in the river below. When he felt the bump of a fish, the net was quickly raised to trap the salmon. As salmon were a major currency by which the monks traded with the outside world, they welcomed this more efficient method of catching them.

“Also, Mackenzie Smith adds, the monks built 17 mills between Lindores Loch and the Abbey, each one specifically placed where the biggest drop in the stream was, so as to harness more power, so I think he’d appreciate our use of modern techniques here in our state-of-the-art distillery. But I always think he’d be a bit taken aback to discover that the Aqua Vitae/Whisky industry has evolved into a multi-billion pound global industry. Small acorns and all that!”