Hello everyone

I was recently sent a media release about a new expression from Lochlea Distillery. It‘s Lochlea Overtone Over & Stout which came out on 4th December and, as the only previous Lochlea I have tried was their 5 Year Old, it was a treat to be sent the sample of this second Overtone expression, the first one having come out last year. While awaiting the sample I arranged to interview Commercial Director, David Ferguson but we‘ll start with the tasting.

This is one of those which highlights beautifully that young age is no barrier to character and flavour. The development was a partnership with the Glasgow craft brewery, Overtone Brewery, who acquired casks from Lochlea to mature their first ever double mash stout. Those casks were then returned to Lochlea to use for finishing. We‘re told, „This second and final UK Exclusive Overtone release comprises just five casks in total: three stout-seasoned (two Bourbon barrels, one STR barrique), one first fill Bourbon barrel, and one ex-peated Bourbon barrel.“

Lochlea Overtone Over & Stout (released December 2025; 52% abv; NCF/NAC; UK exclusive; about £59.99/bottle; 1500 bottles only)

Appearance: Mellow barley gold in glass. Pale brass/oaked white wine highlights. Slow tears with a touch of oiliness and quite close together. [More light amber/marmalade in bottle due to greater volume].

Nose: Fresh, fruity, vanilla and sweet oak; digestive biscuit cooked cereal; touch of florals; hint of chocolate. With water, brown sugars, more malty notes and more milk chocolate; custard; wax.

Palate: Slightly oily mouthfeel. This is where the smoke comes in as it‘s barely perceptible to me on the nose but I will try it again. Malty and quite „crisp“. Herbs, licorice and a touch of char. Fruity, though less than on nose and a little hint of almond.

Finish: Quite long, herbal, dry.

Lochlea is a farm distillery in Ayrshire in the heart of Robert Burns country and is the place where Burns lived from ages of 18 to 25 and started writing his first poems. However, it‘s not something they feature much despite being proud of the link as, quite rightly, they prefer to focus on the fine single malt they make here. They do a great trade in January around Burns‘ Suppers, though! The distillery was opened in 2018 and is small but perfectly formed. It‘s not open to the public to visit unless you buy one of the very limited casks in their annual offer (only a few dozen per year) though David was kind enough to give me a tour on this interview occasion. Therefore, don‘t turn up expecting to get a look round and there‘s no visitor centre or shop.

Turns out David is an Ayrshire lad, born in Ayr and grew up in Ayrshire though he has spent a little time away further south. He studied business management at Glasgow University and spent some time in the Midlands. His start in working life was for an energy company. He worked in recruitment and had involvement with a few whisky companies there and says it was that job that forced him to think about what industry he wanted to be in for his whole career. He‘d had a passion for Scotch Whisky (making it clear that was from legal drinking age) and started writing letters to those he thought would be good employers. An opportunity arose at Douglas Laing & Co. to work on UK business development and then, via a promotion, some international work too. After a bit over 3 years he left to go to Beam Suntory in Glasgow developing his knowledge by working on the cask management and bulk side of their business. „I was a sponge!“, he says of his time there, learning as much as he could. Lochlea had an agent looking for someone to fill his present position. He was approached in 2020 in the midst of the covid situation and has been enjoying himself there ever since, spanning about half of his whisky life so far. As he said, „Why would you not want to be in at the very beginning of a brand?“.

As Commercial Director, he leads a team which manages everything except production. There‘s a lot of customer interaction as they provide support for the distributors in the 32 countries they now supply, with some direct off and on-trade customer interactions in the UK. „Basically, all the sales and marketing and ambassadorial activity. Anything that‘s to get people tasting and buying Lochlea.“  That does also include commissioning pack design and development. They had the Our Barley expression and some limited edition seasonal offerings, „…which was okay when we had five markets and could spread 10,000 bottles amongst them. Now the territory is so vast we‘ve rather outgrown the seasonals.“  Alongside Our Barley, they now have Orchard & Oak, Dark Briar and Smoke without Fire as the single estate core range since August this year. If you want more on those, please visit www.lochleadistillery.com .

When the farm owners first came here in 2006, it had cattle but these were later sold to convert the land into purely arable where they grow Laureate barley for distilling though they do keep an eye on developments in barley strains. Standing in the farm/distillery yard, David showed me some of the surrounding land they own. Unlike some, they grow only spring barley. They don‘t buy in from anywhere else and they don‘t sell any of what they grow. It‘s all used for their own distillation. Just as with wine grapes, the aspect of the land the grain grows on and the weather can affect grain size so they have to be mindful of these aspects in malting and using for the whisky. I was shown the grain store where there are three bays all full to overspilling with this year‘s grain. I wondered where it was malted and David says 20% of it is done in the small space they have there with the rest done at Baird‘s Maltings where it is kept separate from other barley sources. They put so much effort into sustainability, I wondered if they were planning to pursue a BCorp certification. David reckons they‘d do quite well as they are naturally very green in their practices and re-use everything on site. They even constructed a reed bed system for spent lees such that only clean water is released into the water course. „It saves two trucks coming up and down the road every week.“ However, there are no BCorp plans at present. 

Lochlea has put out quite a number of bottlings for a distillery so young. I asked how they decide recipes when creating new offerings and who does the creation.It seems to be a team effort though they do have head blender, Jill Boyd and head distiller, Darren McCormick. At first there was the inaugural release in January 2022, pre-allocated at £50 per bottle. David tells that they make the whisky for drinkers and wanted to get it into their hands at a reasonable price. „Pricing it at, say, £300 a bottle it would still have sold out and made us more cash but it would have sent the wrong message about the brand.“ Apparently a number of industry people asked why they weren‘t charging more. Imagine my surprise ….not. Their plan till earlier in 2025 was to have the four seasonal editions each year to emphasise the single estate story. That‘s no longer possible as the production couldn‘t be spread far enough to all wanting it. Our Barley will remain as the regular expression and the new core range will be there as the main sales too until they get to adding age statements. David advises that they also want aged stocks, „not for bottles with numbers on them“ for some casks that they know will be particularly good when they get to a certain age.

On the website there is a claim of being „meticulous with cut points“ as a point of difference so I wondered why they feel that. „John Campbell was big on this. He took cuts across the wash and the spirit runs every two minutes,“ says David. Of course, John is the former Laphroaig manager who went to Lochlea for a new challenge and who was a stickler for attention to detail. The original cut point was reduced from 69 to 67 and he went on to make the wash run slower at the start of each day and sped it up later on to get more of the fruit characteristics. Using both of these techniques a few more heavy compounds are retained too and is seen in the slightly oily texture of the whisky. Taste it and you‘ll see. And note the angle of the lyne arm on the stills in the picture too and the effect they will have on spirit character. 

This led me to ask what David sees as their point of difference in production and as a Lowland as other distilleries do grow some barley (though not all) or use local produce and regionality is not always so important now. „We wanted Lochlea to be different from other new makes. If you tasted seven new makes and couldn‘t tell which one was Lochlea then that was a problem for us. In the distillery there‘s the fact that all is on the one site and it‘s a single estate. We‘re one of only two doing that. The spirit profile is different – it‘s been likened to a fresh granola bar or fresh baked cereal biscuit with lovely fruit on top. We source our casks direct and John always tried to balance maturation with the spirit in that a cask should never mask the Lochlea flavours. Lowlands were typically light, grassy delicate but it‘s quite full-bodied here with a lot of fruit.“ To this end they don‘t use Lowland on their labelling. I also wondered who comes up with the names and it seems that‘s a team effort too and they‘ve had various debates for the new core range. Everyone gets involved. Another point of difference I noted is that there is no fancy computerisation here. As David put it, “There’s nothing here like an aeroplane cockpit that controls everything.” Indeed, he pointed out in the stillhouse and near mashtun and washbacks, quiet due to seasonal shutdown, that there are lots of blue valve handles and wheels around (some in pic here). All of those have to be opened or closed by hand to start or shut down the system which reminded me a little of a visit to Deanston some years ago. Gives a nice feel to the place to know it’s not all down to technology and that actual humans have a part to play. 

How many markets does the distillery currently serve and why is it not in GTR? „It‘s 32 at the moment and we‘ve just won our first GTR listing. From the second week in January we‘ll be in Scottish Airports‘ shops with an exclusive product. It‘s not something that will conflict with the core range.“ So they‘re off to a great start in the new year to add to their continuing success.

What about future plans? Are you able to sell all or maintaining an archive? Stock for further aging?

„On the brand, we‘ve grown the team and sales growth has been ahead of targets each year. We do have the core range now to grow further too. We‘re also focusing on three decades worth of inventory plan, a very long term plan on where the brand can go. We‘re not going to make more than we can grow barley for – so no long term plan for more spirit – but we want be sought after for quality. Our limiting factor is the barley. No plans to buy more land and we won‘t buy in from other farms. That would change the narrative around the brand. We‘re concentrating on our core range but anything that we will do in a limited quantity is completely on allocation. As an example our 7 year old is literally seven casks coming out on Burns Night 2026. It‘s already bottled and is on allocation – every bottle is spoken for.”

I wondered about private cask sales as already mentioned – and warehouse capacity. There are currently two warehouses on site with room for over 10,000 casks, though only 8,000 there at present. Also, with the core range coming on stream there is more cask turnover but every cask will remain at Lochlea for maturation. The floor is concrete but some are on racks and some in a kind of dunnage arrangement even though the floor isn‘t earthen. As regards the private casks, there is already a long waiting list and a few dozen at the top of that each year are able to purchase when the invitation is opened. The team felt this was needed to help people be involved in the brand journey. There is a cask owners‘ day each year where owners can come along, touch their cask and sample to see how their liquid is progressing. „It‘s not a buy a cask and we‘ll see you in ten years time operation.“ They have had people contact them about casks for investment but they tell them the Lochlea programme is not for them. For more info on the programme please see the useful video on the website at https://www.lochleadistillery.com/field-notes/2024-private-cask-programme .

So time to know a bit more about David himself. It does say on the website that he follows a „seriously underperforming“ football team. Turns out it‘s Middlesborough and there‘s a family story behind that but we didn‘t get into it. Sometimes he drags, as he put it, his family down there to a match day. David and his wife have two young daughters so he likes to have lots of family time, given a busy job which also has him travelling overseas. There are two or three long trips and some more, shorter European ones each year. He enjoys golf and tennis too and, for a few years, represented Scotland at basketball though says he no has nowhere near enough time for such pursuits and now plays basketball very occasionally and only socially. „If I‘m not working or travelling I like to spend as much time as possible with my girls.” 

As for all my interviewees, I asked what he likes most and least about his job – if there even is a „least“.

„I really like how myself and the team have grown something from scratch, seeing it on shelves in many places and knowing you‘ve seen it through all its stages to get there. It‘s grown so much more quickly than expected. In the team we‘re careful who we hire – people have a certain work ethic and that‘s why we‘ve managed to punch above our weight. [This rather reminded me of Isle of Raasay where everyone pitches in on a number of tasks.] Dislike? As any young brand you‘d like more resources. Well, I‘d love a bigger marketing budget but we‘re strategic in using what we have. There are the occasional frustrations like needing more glass or labels or corks all of a sudden because we‘ve grown so fast but nothing to dislike.“

Noting how David does travel, what about a favourite place for work and for leisure and why? [Please note the pic here is from Canada.]

„For work, those countries I‘ve not been to before. I was in South Korea last year.  I was blown away by the whisky market and its demographic there – a lot of young couples and university students which you don‘t get much here and so knowledgeable. For leisure, Italy. My wife and I love it – the food, the wine, the culture, everything about it. We go away from the tourist areas and enjoy good food and drink.“

I also wondered if, so far in his career and given that he‘s had exposure to many cask types, whether David has a favourite cask type for maturation. He‘s eagerly awaiting Lochlea‘s older refill bourbon casks at 7 – 8 years old. They have some first fill bourbons ready at seven and a half years old which he says are stunning and those make up the seven year old coming out in January 2026. He is intent on getting himself a bottle or two of that. They‘ve found Lochlea spirit works particularly well in wine casks to the point where John Campbell bought in 9 small parcels of casks which had predominantly held red wines. Those came from Australia, France, Italy and are coming along really well, plus a small amount from the US. They are also looking at some other New World casks from South America. Their Orchard and Oak has spent some time in Calvados casks for a little twist from the usual bourbon or sherry and it helps amplify the fruit character of Lochlea. I was fascinated to hear they have recently filled a few Mongolian oak casks (new one to me) but none of that is yet mature. „Because we are so young there is no way of predicting how a cask like that will turn out unless we just fill it and see.“ Exciting times!

David is clearly a man who takes much pleasure in his work and his devotion to the brand is obvious so I asked what he was most proud of here at Lochlea. „Going from a blank sheet to now in such a short time – it‘s a bit scary if coming from a larger corporate environment. Also proud of the recognition the brand has had – we won Best Single Estate Distillery in the world against places from all over – as well as the great team effort. “

My last question is another that‘s the same to all interviewees – if stranded on a desert island, what‘s the one dram they would want with them? Doesn‘t have to be one of their own but could be or maybe one that inspired earlier in life. „If I could have only one ever again, I‘d pick Lochlea Our Barley. We‘ve built the brand off that for five years so for nostalgia‘s sake if nothing else. Also, I could sip that and know that it‘s now drunk all over the world. It‘s always the first one that gets opened at my house for people to try a Lochlea for the first time. What does Lochlea taste of – big, bold fruit, lots of juicy fruit on top then this lovely biscuity, cereal note underneath.“

So there’s a little insight into Lochlea and David’s thoughts and my thanks to him for his time and for a few of the pictures here. Looks like Lochlea is set up for another good year in 2026. Thanks also to Anthony McEwan for a few of the pics and for a further store of them if I ever need more!

I’ll be back at the end of the month with a little bit of review. Till then, happy dramming and all the best for the festive season to those of you who mark it.

Slainte mhath,

Caroline