Eden Mill was founded in 2012 on the site of the old Haig's Seggie distillery at Guardbridge in Fife, a short drive from St Andrews. It was, when it opened, the first combined brewery and distillery in Scotland, and the first whisky distillery to operate in the St Andrews area since the original Seggie was dismantled in 1860. For its first decade it traded primarily on its gin, which acquired a respectable following, while quietly laying down malt spirit against the day when the single malt would be old enough to sell.
That day arrived, and Eden Mill's single malt releases have been cautious, small in volume and priced to reflect the artisan scale of the operation. The house spirit is in the Lowland tradition — light of body, grassy, citrus-forward — and the distillery has resisted the temptation to disguise it beneath heavy cask influence. The result is a whisky that shows its region plainly and without apology.
On the nose there is lemon and green apple, a cereal sweetness that recalls fresh-ground malt, vanilla from the cask and a faint floral prettiness behind. The palate is light and cleanly constructed — pear, honey, a little vanilla, and the soft malt base that Lowland distilleries have long made their signature. The finish is short to medium, tidy rather than emphatic, and leaves the palate refreshed rather than coated.
It is, in short, a proper Lowland malt from a young distillery that has earned its place, and a quietly welcome addition to a regional style that the industry had allowed to wither for far too long.
