Daftmill

All about Daftmill distillery

Fife, Scotland, is a region along the east coast north of Edinburgh. It covers the entire peninsula between the Firth of Forth in the south, and the Firth of Tay to the north. Fife is the upper limit of the Lowlands.

We LOVE this story. The Cuthberts have been farming on this land in the Howe of Fife for six generations. They have grown potatoes, malting barley almost the entire time. It is a good farming practice to allow fields to lay fallow every few seasons, to let the land rest and recover nutrients.

So a few generations ago they started their own herd of Scottish beef cattle, that range the fallow fields in the off season (it actually speeds up the rejuvenation process). They have had an active artesian spring on the land as long as anyone can remember.

The life of a farmer is very busy at planting season and at harvest, in the off season not so much. The current generation of Cuthberts took inspiration from the distilleries that bought their barley, and transformed an old milling building on the property, into one of the first new distilleries in Scotland during the new millenium.

They were intent on ensuring that everything about this Whisky was to be as "local" as possible. In fact, everything about the distillery was bought and assembled from resellers and craftsmen within five miles of the site -- with the exception of the stills themselves, which were also sourced as closely as possible (Tothes in Speyside).

They applied for their license -- which was granted in on November 30th, 2005 -- Saint Andrews Day -- and the first spirit was distilled on December 16th of the same year.  

All the ingredients are baked at the Cuthbert farm. They use their own water, barley, and stillhouse. The wash still has a capacity of 2500 liters, and the spirits till 1500 liters.

Since they are farmers first and distillers second, they only work the still house in the summer and winter, so production is very limited. The spirit is being aged in ex-Bourbon casks on site.