Lochlea Distillery is based on an Ayrshire farm that Robert Burns’s father worked at and that the bard once called home. He toiled the very soil that the barley used to make Lochlea whisky grows on today, from 1777 until his father’s death in 1784.
It was a cattle farm when Neil McGeoch acquired it in 2006. But at 222 acres, there was potential for more and a need to establish a more viable operation. The answer for Lochlea was barley, grown on this land to feed livestock before. McGeoch decided to plant 50 acres back in 2015 with the aim of creating whisky. By 2017, the former piggery, byre and midden in the heart of the farm steading was being converted into a distillery. The cattle sheds were being repurposed into bonded warehouses. Licences were secured in 2018. A £6m investment was completed.
Then, on Burns Night 2022, Lochlea launched its first whisky. Since then, the brand has gotten a little louder, establishing a consistently available core product, Lochlea Our Barley, launching seasonal selections based on its agricultural approach, and a new cask strength series. It’s emerged as one of the most interesting new, independently-owned producers in the Scotch whisky scene.
Those fields are full of laureate barley, grown just 150 yards from the distillery. The resulting draff is used to feed local cattle and its water is sourced on-site. The finest of Ayrshire’s natural resources is showcased in every bottle, while the distillery’s carbon footprint is kept to a minimum. Currently, Lochlea can make 180,000 litres of alcohol per annum and there would need to be more farm before there could be more whisky.
The idea is to create a light, elegant spirit that showcases the flavour of its raw material. Not that the distillery seems to be interested in invoking notions of provenance or terroir in its marketing. There’s also an emphasis on generating ripe, bright fruity flavours in the new make. That means creating a slowly extracted, crystal clear wort, which is then elevated by a long fermentation to create an estery wash.
There are three long (116 hours) and two short fermentations, in traditional wooden Douglas fir washbacks with two specifically selected yeasts. A slow distillation process on pot stills made to spec in Scotland with high cut points then follows. The former cattle sheds now hold warehousing spaces where Lochlea whisky is matured on-site in a variety of casks, predominantly bourbon (Maker’s Mark is a favourite), oloroso sherry, Pedro Ximénez, and STRs (shaved, toasted, re-charred). There are some more experimental varieties too, like some peated casks. Lochlea uses racked warehouse storage because it ensures the best airflow around casks, flexibility for moving and sampling, more surface area contact and fewer losses than palletising.
There are plans for a visitor facility, but more excitingly for floor maltings and a bottling hall in order to make it a true one-site whisky maker.