St Andrews Day Launch For Arbikie’s New Highland Rye Whiskies

Arbikie, the family-owned, single-estate distillery has announced the latest additions to its family of whiskies. The new Highland Rye family is the amalgamation of their previous releases. The Original represents the true character of their rye, wheat and malted barley mash bill, which after years of maturation in new American oak, captures the spice, smoke and sweetness of rye. The Peated matches The Original with casks previously used to mature peated Islay whisky, while The PX matches The Original with Pedro Ximénez casks, the traditional Andalusian sherry wine.

Arbikie grows all the grain that it uses to distil with a field to bottle approach, all steps of production happening on site. In 2018, Arbikie released the first Rye Whisky from Scotland in nearly 200 years, reviving the traditional method of growing and distilling rye on farm distilleries.

Dr Kirsty Black, Arbikie Master Distiller commented:

“This is the next stage of Arbikie; by creating this new core range we continue the revival of rye in Scotch whisky distilling. As farm-based distillers, we want our raw materials to shine and this new family of Highland Rye does just that, each demonstrating the breadth of flavours this grain can produce. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!”

Christian Perez, Head of Maturation commented:

“The ultimate goal is to bring an experience to the consumer on the versatility of our Single Grain Rye. The Original provides the building blocks to evoke unique combinations of flavour. The expressions were carefully selected to reach a specific mood or atmosphere for people to enjoy.”

Iain Stirling, Co-Owner of Arbikie Distillery commented:

“As a legacy family business, this is a very significant day in our journey to building a sustainable, family-owned whisky business. We’re very lucky to be able to grow all the grain that we need to distil, as this helps give our whiskies unique provenance as well as distinct flavours from our coastal location and the rich soils where our barley, wheat and rye grow on Scotland’s sunny and fertile east coast.”