Daftmill

Daftmill is part of the Pitlair Estate. According to the distillery's history, the Walker family held Daftmill and Pitlair by 1701, and the present family, who had been their tenants, bought the estate in 1984.

In June 2003 the brothers Francis and Ian Cuthbert applied for planning permission to turn the farm's old mill buildings into a distillery. Repairs and installation took most of 2004 and 2005. HM Revenue and Customs granted the licence on St Andrew's Day 2005, and the first spirit was made on 16 December 2005. The family planned to wait at least ten years before selling any whisky. The first release, the 2005 Inaugural Release, came out in June 2018: 629 bottles of a 12 year old. Summer and winter releases followed, and later a cask-strength 15 year old.

The farm lies in the Howe of Fife near the Bow of Fife, in the valley of the River Eden in the parish of Collessie, in the Lowland whisky region. It grows mainly malting barley, rears beef cattle and grows potatoes, carrots and broccoli. The distillery uses the farm's own barley and water from an artesian well, which a water tower more than 100 years old supplies to the buildings by gravity. For the first release, Chariot barley harvested on 31 August 2004 from the Dam Park and Curling Pond fields was malted by Robert Kilgour & Co, among the last malt made by that firm before it closed. The farm has no visitor facilities.

The stills and mash tun came from the coppersmiths Forsyths of Rothes; the distillery says all other work was done by people living within five miles (8 km) of the farm. Distilling fits around the farming year: whisky is made in the winter months and again in June and July, and the stills are silent at sowing, planting and harvest. In some years this gives as few as 100 casks. Draff feeds the farm's cattle, and pot ale and spent lees are spread on grass and barley stubble. The first release came from first-fill bourbon casks and was bottled at 55.8% vol. The number and size of the stills are not given in the sources opened.

The distillery publishes cask details rather than tasting descriptions: its release pages give vintage, age, cask type, cask numbers, bottle count and strength. It calls Daftmill a Lowland whisky and stresses scarcity: releases are small, twice a year, and often sell out quickly. Whisky is sold through its distributor Berry Bros. & Rudd and specialist shops. No house flavour description was found in the sources opened.