Private tours looking at the history and environment of beautiful Royal Deeside and Speyside
27/11/2024
Last week Hubbie and I decided to flee the coming bad weather and took a short break in snow-free North Fife. It turned out to be quite a busman's holiday. We indulged in a history tour of Lindores Abbey, which is owned by Lindores Abbey Distillery at Newburgh, on the southern bank of the Tay Estuary.
While the distillery was set up in 2017, the abbey dates from the 12th century, but is now much ruined due to the antics of the 16th century Reformation vandals and subsequent cannibalism of the stone for local buildings. The Benedictine monks who lived at the abbey were from the order of Tiron, France, or Tironensians. As well as being famed for their horticultural skill in growing apple and plum orchards, they also produced the earliest recorded form of whisky, aqua vitae, which was ordered from the monks by the King in 1494. As if to prove a point, archaeological excavations ahead of the distillery build uncovered what might be the earliest whisky still in the world!
Instead of producing the usual run of gin botanicals for the first three years (three years and a day being the point at which the spirit can be called whisky), in a very inspired move the distillery produced what they believed to be a close representation of the aqua vitae. We sampled it after the tour, and it really is delicious!
The excitement of the day didn't end there, as we ferreted out a lovely Pictish symbol stone at nearby Abdie Kirk, just outside Grange of Lindores. This has one of the clearest representations of the crescent moon and bent arrow (the WHW Tours logo) that I've seen to date, so all in all it was a brilliant day!
The photos of the tour were somewhat snatched as I wanted to keep up with the information being imparted rather than spend much time lining up pictures. The wintery conditions of bright sun, low in the sky and deep, long shadows were quite challenging, but did give the place an extra layer of atmosphere.
