Linkwood was founded in 1821 by Peter Brown, factor of the Linkwood and Pittendreich estates near Elgin, and the distillery has remained in production ever since save for a brief mid-twentieth-century rebuild. It now belongs to Diageo, and like several of its sister sites its single malt output is overshadowed by its blending role. What sets Linkwood apart is the insistence — long enforced by manager Roderick Mackenzie in the early twentieth century — that nothing in the distillery be changed for fear of altering the character of the spirit. Spider webs were famously left in place.
The Flora & Fauna range was launched in the early 1990s as a way of giving United Distillers' lesser-known malts a permanent shop window, each bottling marked by an illustration of an animal or plant native to the distillery's surroundings. Linkwood's 12 Year Old has been a fixture of the series ever since, and remains the most accessible official expression of the distillery.
The nose is the chief reason Linkwood enjoys its reputation: cut flowers and green apple, light vanilla and freshly mown grass, the kind of clean, fragrant Speyside that has had blenders queuing for decades. The palate is similarly clean and floral, pear and almond meeting a touch of honey, the 43% strength giving just enough weight to carry the aromatics through to the finish.
The finish is medium and soft, lingering orchard blossom carrying off into a faint cereal sweetness. It is not a complex whisky, but it does what it sets out to do with admirable poise. As a working introduction to the lighter, floral end of the Speyside spectrum, the Flora & Fauna 12 remains hard to beat.
