Finglassie: smoky lowland malt from InchDairnie

InchDairnie Distillery positions themselves as the ingenious distillery. Located in the Fife region of Scotland (making this lowland whisky) the website roars with strong language, claiming that it will bring malt whisky tradition into the modern world. The goal is to excite palates. Well, I like this beating on the drum. The website is really worth your time to visit, so you get sucked in the path they have set for themselves on the way to whisky releases.

InchDairnie is certainly not going to conform to limits in what they can do. One simply has to browse through the announced release to see that. We already had a RyeLaw release, which was a single grain whisky, or more precisely: “the world’s only precision distilled malted rye Scotch whisky.” Worth checking out if you are into rye whisky. There is an announcement of a PrinLaws Collection, containing “flavour-led distillates from different yeasts, cereals and oaks”. All very limited, so it will become rare. Of course, there will also be a single malt release carrying the name of the distillery, but this InchDairnie won’t see daylight until 2029. Quite some counting down to do (when I write this, the counter says 1713 days…).

In 2025, there will be a release of KinGlassie, a “well-peated” single malt whisky. The name is taken from the nearby village Kinglassie. And this where we arrive at today’s sample on the table. This is an expression confusingly called Finglassie and is bottled in the Cooper’s Choice range of the Vintage Malt Whisky Co. It is a peated single malt, and the label mentions it was made at InchDairnie Distillery, but still they choose a slightly different name. To avoid future confusion? Luckily you have a dedicated blogger to look into it. Let’s have a sip!

Finglassie Lowland Smoke, bottled at 54 % abv by Vintage Malt Whisky Co.

Makeup: An independent bottling of peated InchDairnie under the name Finglassie, bottled in 2021 and finished in a Marsala cask carrying the number 410. The cask produced 270 bottles.

General impressions: Marsala is fortified wine from the Italian island Sicily. The whisky has a slightly pink hue from it. But don’t let the sweet colour fool you, you are in for a surprise. The smoke hits you in the face right away, but is layered with a beautiful sour note, like vinegar. Undeniably, the smoke creates a barbecue vibe coming from the glass, the influence of the cask playing with the peated liquid. But it’s absolutely not maritime, like Islay relatives. This is mainland peated whisky, and that is a category deserving of attention. The Finglassie comes off very earthy and at the same time playful thanks to the Marsala influences.

The mouthfeel is soft and amazingly sweet, with an incredibly smoky, burning but pleasant finish. Also dry in a good way, leaving you able to take the sensations in. Beautiful wood, sweet candy, all in great balance. This cask brings a lot of complexity to the party. With water, more meat comes on the grill, sizzling away while you get more and more hungry. On the tongue, the whisky turns almost creamy. The sweetness remains and no off-notes appear.

Conclusion: Big, big whisky. The distillate is just perfect and the bottler handled it well with a risky cask, that delivers. If this is any promise on things to come from official and independent sources, I advise you keep an eye out for new InchDairnie bottlings, no matter what name they carry.

Score: 87 points

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