Lowrie's Blended Scotch Whisky - Thompson Bros.

Volume: 0.7 litres | Alcohol content: 45.7% | Chill filtration: No | Colouring: No

Special Features:

Lowrie's Reserve brings together four whisky components of different ages and cask influences. For this Blended Scotch composed in 2023, Thompson Bros used 20.5% Strathclyde Single Grain from 1994, matured for 28 years in a refill bourbon cask. They added 19.9% 11-year-old Speyside Single Malt from 2012, matured in a Bourbon Hogshead, and 51.6% 10-year-old Blended Scotch from 2012, matured in three Sherry Hogsheads. The remaining 8% comes from SRV5, which underwent further maturation after being drawn from Vat 5, in a cask that had first held Australian Shiraz and subsequently beer from Edinburgh's Campervan Brewery. After marrying, the blend rested before bottling. It was bottled at 45.7% without added colouring or chill filtration.

The Strathclyde's long maturation in previously used bourbon casks adds texture as well as coconut and caramel notes to the composition. The SRV5 component contributes a distinctive, funky accent. The blend thus combines sherry influence, mature grain whisky and bourbon-cask-matured Speyside malt with an unusual wine and beer cask component.

The name honours W. P. Lowrie, an important blender and distillery founder and owner of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The label, designed by Andrew Soetiono, also references Jack Lowrie's Suzuki Jimny. The landscape depicted is based on a stretch of the A9 between Inverness and Dornoch.

Tasting Notes:

• Nose: On the nose, pear drops and pastis mingle with white grapes, hops and Galia melon. Toffee popcorn, crunchy honeycomb and marshmallows add to the sweet impressions. Parsley, hay and bay leaf introduce green and herbal notes, while white miso paste and tomato plant provide further accents.
• Palate: On the palate, toffee brittle, caramelised barley malt and almond nougat meet strawberry and wild herbs. Orange marmalade and lemon cough sweets add to the fruity side. There is also some oak spice, a hint of clove and charred peach.
• Finish: The bitter orange character of orange bitters remains present on the finish, alongside clove oil and ginger root. A gentle saltiness accompanies the lingering flavours.

Distillery/Bottler:

Thompson Bros operates in Dornoch as an independent bottler with its own bonded warehouse. For Lowrie's Reserve, Jack Lowrie and Thompson Bros composed the blend from whiskies produced at several Scottish distilleries; the grain component comes from Strathclyde. Selection, blending, resting and bottling took place at the Station Road site in Dornoch.

The company has carried out its own bottling operations since 2020. Its second site on Station Road allows it to control marrying, dilution, filtration and bottling. It uses filters of 10 or 15 microns and does not use chill filtration or caramel colouring. Dilution is carried out slowly with water treated by reverse osmosis. Filling, corking and labelling are done by hand, and each bottle is individually checked for remaining particles.

Facts: