InchDairnie KinGlassie 8 Year Old Double Matured

At the dawn of a new century, Scotch whisky was entering a time of change. Tastes were shifting, traditions were evolving, and for those bold enough to see it, opportunity was waiting. For Ian Palmer, it was the perfect moment to imagine a new distillery – one that would honour Scotland’s whisky heritage while daring to push its boundaries.

The search for a home began with many possibilities, but one in particular stood out: the site of the old Prinlaws Mill on the banks of the River Leven, near the town of Leslie in Fife. Built in 1829 and run by John Fergus & Co., the mill once thrummed with life, powered by the steady waters flowing from Loch Leven. When it closed in 1957, its buildings were pulled down, leaving only a tall red-brick chimney as a lonely marker of its industrious past.

In February 2011, the newly formed John Fergus & Co. (now InchDairnie Distillery Ltd) set its sights on building the distillery at the old mill, but the river that once brought power now brought risk – the threat of flooding meant the dream would have to move. Just over the hill, they found it: a piece of land once belonging to InchDairnie House, part of an estate gifted to the Ayton family by the Scottish Crown in 1539. With its gentle slopes and proud history, it felt like destiny.

By the autumn of 2012, plans were in motion. Approval came in early 2013, and soon the ground was theirs. In July 2014, construction began, and on a cold December day in 2015, the first spirit ran from the stills. It was StrathEnry – a rich, full-flavoured malt crafted not for bottling, but for exchange with other distillers. Quietly, the foundation was laid.

In 2016, the distillery began something truly unique: seasonal single malt distillation using only barley grown in Fife. Spring and summer brought the light, floral notes of spring barley, while autumn and winter delivered the depth and warmth of winter barley. Each season had its own yeast, its own rhythm of fermentation, and its own carefully chosen distillation cut. The casks, too, were matched to the character of the spirit, ensuring every drop told the story of the time of year it was made. In 2029, these seasonal whiskies from 2016 will be married into the first InchDairnie Vintage – a 12-year-old unlike any other.

From there, innovation flowed as freely as the spirit itself. In 2017 came KinGlassie, a bold, well-peated single malt, and RyeLaw, a pioneering Scottish rye whisky. In 2019, oats were distilled – perhaps for the first time ever in Scotland – followed by wheat spirit and a sour mash in 2021. The year 2022 saw the taming of tricky 6-row winter barley and the dark, roasted depths of kiln-dried malt usually destined for ales.

The next chapter unfolded in 2023, when RyeLaw became InchDairnie’s first official bottling, launched to fifteen markets around the world. A year later, the distillery doubled its capacity with new stills and warehouses, ready to meet the growing appetite for its creations. Then, in May 2025, the long-awaited KinGlassie single malt finally stepped into the light, in two expressions – Double Matured and Raw – marking another milestone in a journey that has always been about more than just making whisky.

Behind every bottle lies a distillery built with purpose. InchDairnie draws its water from two nearby springs, Flowers of May and Goathill, which meet beneath the Lomond Hills just beside the distillery. Fermentation takes place in four stainless steel outdoor washbacks, each holding 80,000 litres. Exposed to the changing seasons, they capture the ebb and flow of Fife’s climate – one of the many reasons the team believe in vintages.

From there, the spirit moves through a uniquely engineered stillhouse. The original two stills have since doubled to four – two wash and two spirit stills – each fitted with external heat exchangers and twin condensers that use thermal vapour recompression. This not only makes the distillery more efficient but also enhances copper contact, shaping a cleaner, more complex spirit. Alongside the pot stills stands the Lomond Hill Still, designed by Ian with Italian stillmakers Frilli, a striking piece of distilling innovation that embodies InchDairnie’s restless spirit. This still features six bubble cap trays in its neck, allowing them to distil RyeLaw with great precision.

With a capacity of four million litres a year, InchDairnie now produces nine distinct styles of whisky. KinGlassie, distilled for just one week each year using peated Fife-grown barley, accounts for less than 30,000 litres annually – a rare treasure born of patience and precision.

It is a story of water and barley, of seasons and science, of heritage and invention. And like the casks quietly resting in the InchDairnie warehouses, it is a story still maturing, promising whiskies that will speak of place, time, and character in every drop.