InchDairnie

Ian Palmer had spent 40 years in Scotch whisky, at Invergordon, Glen Turner, Glen Moray and Starlaw. ScotchWhisky.com reports that he foresaw blenders and brand owners struggling to secure single malt and planned a GBP 10 million distillery to make malt for third-party brands. A private family investment group backed him, with a GBP 1.7 million government grant and his own money.

Palmer and his investors set up John Fergus & Co as holding company in 2011. Building began near Kinglassie in July 2014, stills were ordered from the Italian coppersmith Frilli, and the first spirit ran in December 2015, 18 months later; the official launch was in May 2016. The distillery first supplied fillings to Macduff International. Companies House now shows InchDairnie Whisky Limited, incorporated in 2011, controlled by CES Whisky Limited, whose registered controller is a Danish individual.

InchDairnie stands on the Kinglassie road on the edge of Glenrothes in Fife, in the Lowland region. ScotchWhisky.com names its water sources as the Flowers of May and Goathill springs. The company describes its approach as "precision distilling" and says it champions Fife provenance, using both winter and spring barley grown in the county.

To process winter barley, InchDairnie installed a hammer mill and a mash filter; ScotchWhisky.com says it was only the second Scotch distillery to do so, after Teaninich, and that the very clear wort gives grassy, floral aromas. Mashes of 4 tonnes ferment for about 60 hours in four large stainless steel washbacks, using yeast strains that change with the seasons. The wash still (18,000 litres) and spirit still (11,000 litres) each have two shell-and-tube condensers, which add copper contact and control over reflux. A Lomond still with plates was installed for later triple distillation. Capacity is given as 2 million litres of alcohol a year.

ScotchWhisky.com reports the plan for an unpeated single malt that would be "a walk in a garden throughout the year": floral, with cut grass, fruit and some spice from sherry and wine casks. The idea was to vat the spirit of all four seasons of one year together, as a single vintage. When that page was written, the first single malt was expected 10 to 12 years after distilling began. The opened sources do not describe the distillery's own releases since then.