Tullibardine’s history of brewing and distilling dates back to 1488, when King James IV of Scotland stopped by the site, a brewery at the time, to purchase beer. This was recorded as the first public purchase of beer in Scotland. Fast forward to 1947 when distillery specialist William Delme-Evans visited the same spot and found that the mineral rich character and purity of the water from nearby springs situated in Perthshire’s Ochil Hills was perfect for distillation. The Ochil Hills are well known for the gold that was once mined from them, giving us our ‘a drop of pure Highland gold’. Using the Danny Burn as the water source, Delme-Evans converted the brewery site into a whisky distillery and named it Tullibardine after the small medieval chapel situated nearby and translating as ‘lookout hill’ in Gaelic. Tullibardine was the first distillery to be built in Scotland since 1900. The distillery lay silent between 1993 and 2003 but was reinvigorated by a group of private investors and then sold to family-owned French wine and spirits group, Terroir Distillers, in 2011. The distillery is now thriving once again with a cooperage, maturation warehouses, blending facility and a bottling line all located on-site.

Aged exclusively in first fill bourbon casks, the Tullibardine 12 Year Old is a wonderfully creamy whisky, with notes of soft citrus, toffee apples and freshly baked biscuits. On the nose, there’s a delicate and balanced mix of barley sugar, creamy vanilla and oaky aromas with hints of muscovado sugar. To taste, there’s soft, chewy toffee, malted biscuits with freshly baked meringue pie and subtle hints of black liquorice.