Eden Mill Distillery Visit

I was aware of Eden Mill but it was only when I read about them in Cask and Still magazine that I was intrigued enough to head up to the distillery and find out more. Paul Miller, the owner, was kind enough to give me a tour of the distillery which was buzzing with fresh enthusiasm. They are a craft distillery focussed on creating bespoke and high quality spirits and beers.

Eden Mill are located overlooking the River Eden, sitting between Leuchars, notable for its RAF association, and St Andrews notable for the Golf Open due to take place between the 13th and 19th of July. Blessed with location, Eden.Mill is further endowed with a small group of enthusiastic and cheery workers, who are scattered about the various buildings that make up the distillery. It was very refreshing while I toured the distillery that Paul spoke and engaged with his staff with great familiarity, I am only too familiar with bosses in organizations that don’t know their employees names let alone what degree they are studying but Paul did, who knows perhaps if I had a boss like Paul I wouldn’t have started Lady of the Glen…

It’s no ordinary distillery – hosting beer and gin tastings at their bar on site while next to the bar in a warehouse they brew their own beer and distil their own gin and Whisky. However, this is no simple ‘Jack of all trades’ type operation, not by any stretch of the imagination; The gin is especially hand crafted, you can view their recent gin tasting on Scotsman Food and Drink. The small batches of Whisky which were made available to the public have already sold out! The next batch coming out around the time of The Open, will likely sell out too. Their beer choice is varied and award winning too with some IPAs among the collection. 

Their brewing warehouse is filled with shiny new vats and tanks for the purposes of brewing their beers while in a separate room inside the warehouse, where mobile phones are not allowed, the distillation of Whisky and gin takes place, not at the same time of course. Their lovely copper stills are not huge which will allow for a lot of copper contact in a similar way to Daftmill, so I would be expecting a light bodied and clean style spirit, typical of a good Lowland Malt Whisky. However, it will be the responsibility of the Scotts (Scott Gowan, Head Brewer and Scott Ferguson) who will manage the distillation and maturation of the Whisky and both of whom are linked to that famous Heriott Watt Brewing and Distillation course. 

I was very intrigued to learn that there is a great deal of innovation at Eden.mill in regards the different malts they use; chocolate malts and brown malts among others all sourced from Fife.  Obviously, none of the Whisky is ready yet, that will take at least three years and 1 day. But, I am excited as I did get an opportunity to try their Chocolate Malt Spirit and the nose on it was incredible it was genuinely like milk chocolate and in my humble opinion it had more chocolate notes than the Glenmorangie Signet I tried at Whisky Lounge recently. Although their private sale is sold they are obviously aging their own standard casks and I was fortunate enough to see them. Their cask collection was incredibly impressive; the quality of wood they had was outstanding, Paul said ‘no expense had been spared’ and you could tell; amazingly fresh first fill Sherry casks, Oloroso Hogsheads and American bourbon but there were far more Sherry Casks than Bourbon…far more. So this is a Whisky that will be very popular, particularly in Europe if current trends continue due to their sherry hoard of casks. As a Lowland malt it well especially benefit due to the light bodied spirit being influence by the dark fruity notes of the sherry casks.

There are lots of things to get excited about in St Andrews, the Open and now Eden Mill, only we’ll have to wait a frustratingly longer time until we get Eden.Mill Whisky but the Gins and beers will definitely do for now. If your visting St Andrews, it would be a good idea to book ahead for their gin or beer tastings as their bespoke tasting area looks especially well suited for group tastings.