The Abbey at Lindores was founded in 1191 and in 1494 the now-famous dictum from King James IV delegating ‘eight bolls malt’ to Brother John Cor for the production of aqua vitae became the first written reference to whisky in the UK. 

In 2013, Drew Mackenzie-Smith and his wife Helen began works on a new Lindores Abbey distillery to take advantage of the site’s historical links to Scotland’s national spirit. Distillation operations commenced in late 2017, with the distillery equipped with one wash still and two spirit stills.

Lindores Abbey distillery practises very long fermentations to help create a particularly fruity spirit and since 2020 has used only local barley. The inaugural Lowland single malt whiskies from Lindores Abbey appeared in 2021 and the distillery now has a small core range bottled at 49.4% alongside occasional limited edition cask strength and single cask whiskies.