Eden Mill St Andrews

Our six washbacks are now in place inside our distillery. Washbacks are used for the fermentation stage of the whisky-making process, and this is where the yeast is added into the process. Often overlooked when it comes to making whisky, yeast is actually a vital ingredient to the generation of our future spirit's flavour profile. Ours will be provided by Kerry, who are based in Menstrie and who are Scotland's oldest manufacturer of distilling yeast. The particular strain we'll have is dried M-type yeast, a heritage strain that has been in use since 1953 and it has been chosen for its ability to generate rich flavour. Each washback has a 15,000L capacity and our fermentation cycle will run for at least 72 hours. This long timeframe, combined with the M-type yeast, will allow for optimum development of esters during fermentation - the flavour compound that produces fruity notes in our future spirit. During fermentation, a lot of carbon dioxide is produced. In many cases, this is simply left to go into the atmosphere but we're proud to say we're putting in place the infrastructure to collect this by-product so it can be used for other things in the future. PS - if you look closely, you can spot the base of our wash still on its perch next to the window!

Last Thursday, the Royal Marines Charity held a gala dinner at the Guildhall in London. Celebrating 360 years of the Royal Marines, a live auction also took place during the dinner to raise funds for the RMC, which supports veterans and their families. We donated a bottle of our 2023 and 2024 Art of St Andrews Single Malt to the auction and together they raised £4,800. In total, the evening raised an incredible amount of £1.1 million, making it the most successful Guildhall Dinner in the history of the RMC. The monies go towards continuing to provide life-changing mental health support, financial assistance and guidance in transitioning to civilian life for serving and retired Royal Marines and their families. We are delighted that their evening was such a success and to have been able to make a small contribution to the great work that they do.

We’re delighted to announce a long-term partnership with Scottish biotechnology company, MiAlgae, to repurpose our whisky effluent in order to create a sustainable source of Omega-3s. Traditionally sourced from wild-caught fish, demand for Omega-3s is driving unsustainable overfishing - with 16 million tonnes of oceanic fish wild-caught annually, approximately 90% of the world's fish stocks are now over-exploited or fully depleted. Our effluent tank will soon be installed at the new distillery and, once operational in early 2025, MiAlgae will offer a circular solution by using effluent to grow microalgae – the original source of Omega-3s. With sustainability being a core pillar of the Eden Mill brand, we’re delighted to be involved with an innovative process that eliminates the need for fish, operates at scale and is cost effective, ensuring sustainability remains affordable without compromising impact. https://loom.ly/ebPE1XM

As our distillery build progresses, we want to share some photos with you of what will be our future visitor centre. Our building itself, with its black cladding, stands out against its surroundings but on the inside, it will be a bright, open and airy space. As you walk in, you will be able to see up to the full height of the building, with mezzanine flooring where the tasting rooms and bar will be. Here's a snapshot of the various spaces and what they will transform into over the coming months: 1 - what you will see when you enter the building via the main door. The very top floor at the end will be our beautiful bar overlooking the Eden Estuary! 2 - the view from the other side of the building. The area that is currently open will be the future main entrance you will come through when you visit 3 - the gin tasting staircase will take you from the first part of the gin tour up to the tasting room where you will be able to look out over the production hall and see our beautiful gin still 4 - our main gin tasting room. This will be where you'll sample our delicious gins - a warm and intimate space with windows looking out over the production hall 5 - our distillery lab. This will form part of certain tours but will also be our distilling team's workplace 6 - a view of part of our production hall. This space will soon be filled with our six washbacks and you can already see the mash tun in place at the back 7 - these are our sprinkler tanks and pump house. Not part of the tour but if you have been past the site you may have seen them - given their size, they're hard to miss! The site is now the busiest it has ever been and it changes every day. We are so excited to see it continue to transform with the support of our construction partner, akp Scotland Ltd, as well as our other contractors and suppliers. Not too much longer to wait now until you can come to visit us!

Over the past few months, we have been working closely with Darren Peattie at East Neuk Salt Company to craft something very special. Our Smoked Salt Sugar Syrup is produced using sea salt that has been hand-harvested by Darren in the beautiful seaside town of St Monans, just along the coast from us in Fife. Smoked using oak staves from our spent single malt whisky casks, it is a truly unique product that will add an interesting edge to any cocktail. We recommend a Smoked Salt Old Fashioned 🥃 We've been trialling it at the Eden Mill Experience in Edinburgh for a few months now to a very positive reception and we're pleased that it is now available to purchase online and in our retail spaces. It's a pleasure to collaborate with another local Fife business and we're looking forward to serving this up in cocktails behind the bar at our new distillery visitor centre next year!

It's hard to believe it's been a whole month already since we were at the Genesis Scottish Open ⛳ This was our first time activating at scale at a golf event in our home country, and what an event it was! While the sun didn't shine as much as we would have liked, it was still a great four days of golf and we were delighted to see so many people enjoying our different drinks, especially at our Eden Mill Gin Bar near the sixth hole. If you were there and came along to our bar, thank you for your support! Here's a wee recap of the tournament and a showcase of some of our delicious serves. Thanks again to the Genesis Scottish Open and DP World Tour for their collaboration, as well as to the teams behind the bars for pouring great drinks and keeping everything going.

Following on from the installation of our branding, we had another exciting development a few weeks ago. Our mash tun arrived on site! It travelled all the way from LH Stainless in Speyside and had to have a police escort due to its size. After a (very) tight squeeze through the distillery's roller door, it is now in place inside the building, and we are now ready to commence with the remainder of the distillery kit installation. The mash tun size is 3 tonnes and this allows our distillery to produce just over one million litres of new-make spirit per year. In the new distillery, we'll be using barley that has been locally-grown in Fife and will be malted 43 miles away in Alloa by Crisp Malt. We will mill the barley on-site and then mix with water in the mash tun to kick-start the whisky-making process 🌾

We are thrilled to announce the latest addition to our annual 'Art of St Andrews' series 🥃 The 2024 release is matured in a combination of Amarone red wine and sherry casks, before finishing in first-fill Amarone casks. To pair with this vibrant single malt, we partnered with linocut artist Babs Pease who takes her inspiration from the coastal scenes and fishing villages along the Fife coast. Babs' artwork on the whisky carton depicts University of St Andrews students doing a customary ‘Pier Walk’ in their iconic red gowns, while the cathedral sits proud on the skyline above the harbour. As for the whisky in the bottle, it's a bold dram with notes of raisin, fig, almond, hedgerow fruits and cherries, all with a subtle cinnamon and black pepper spice. The heady Italian wine maturation is perfectly complemented by sweetness and nuttiness from Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez casks from Jerez 🍇 Our head of marketing, Hannah Ingram, said: "This year we wanted to showcase familiar sights and scenes from our hometown that will be instantly recognisable for locals and tourists alike. From St Andrews Cathedral and the red gowns of the students, to the lone golfer chipping out of a bunker - Babs captured the energy of the town perfectly!" To celebrate the release, we have launched an exclusive 'Art of St Andrews Whisky Experience' at our tasting room in the Old Course Hotel, Golf Resort & Spa. This unique session will allow guests to explore three drams from the series - 2022, 2023 and 2024 - each with its own distinct cask maturation and taste profile. Visit edenmill.com to find out more! Hamish Maclean / Ryan Horan / Rennie Donaldson

Over the past few days, we have marked another milestone in the development of our future new home. Our logo has been installed on the three facades of our building, making it officially 'ours'. As we move ever closer to becoming operational and opening our doors to the public, we're getting excited for the months ahead with lots more big moments to come!

And that's a wrap on a brilliant weekend of golf at the Genesis Scottish Open! A huge congratulations to Scotland's very own Robert MacIntyre on winning the tournament 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⛳ It was a pleasure to be the Official Gin of this year's event and we were excited to see so many people enjoying our drinks at the Eden Mill Gin Bar next to the sixth hole, as well as at all the other bars across the course. The sun may only have really shone on one of the days but that didn't dampen our spirits... We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the Genesis Scottish Open and DP World Tour for the opportunity to collaborate.