How A 500-Year-Old Royal Dowry Could Give Us The Next Great Single Malt: Lerwick Distillery Founder Martin Watt On Shetland's Ambition To Make Scotland's Northernmost Single Malt & Whisky Veteran Ian Millar's Legacy Project
“Shetland is the windiest place in Europe… The throughflow of strong wind and salty air is going to have a significant effect on the maturation… We’re also so far away from Speyside that it’ll essentially be a new whisky region.”
– Martin Watt, Founder of Lerwick Distillery – Scotland’s northernmost Single Malt producer.
When Margaret of Denmark was betrothed to James III of Scotland in 1468, her financially challenged father struggled to pay for her dowry. To secure his loan, King Christian I pledged two sets of islands to Scotland – the Orkney and Shetland Islands.
Danish kings over the next couple of centuries sought to undo their predecessor’s mistake, but the islands were never successfully redeemed. A royal marriage over 500 years ago turned these two outposts of the Scandinavian world into Scottish territory forever.
Shetlanders are Scottish today, but their Scandinavian connections remain strong. NØRN, the island’s original native tongue descended from Old Norse, survives in words and place names. Each year, a Viking-style galley goes up in flames at the Up Helly Aa fire festival. And soon, this windswept northern archipelago with a Norse-accented Scottish identity will become a new Scotch Whisky Region with the establishment of its very own Single Malt Scotch distillery – Lerwick Distillery.
The Up Helly Aa torchlit procession and galley burning (Source: Shetland.org)
“We’re the most northerly single malt Scotch whisky in the world,” said Lerwick Distillery’s founder, Martin Watt. “There are distilleries in Iceland, Norway and the Faroe Islands, but while we share Scandinavian history and culture, only we can call our whisky Scotch.”
Lerwick Distillery has not yet begun distilling. But the whisky industry is watching it closely because of the people entrusted with it. Serving as its Master Distiller will be Ian Millar, who has had a 55-year career running and helming some of the most iconic Scotch distilleries. His contributions also saw his induction into the Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame – the highest honour conferred by the modern whisky industry.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
Ian has said that he sees Lerwick as a legacy-defining project. After decades caring for old Single Malt Scotch brands with identities established long before he arrived, Lerwick’s whisky will come the closest to bearing Ian’s fingerprint – from the technical design of the distillery to its signature recipe.
Another fascinating reason to watch Lerwick is Shetland Islands’ unique climatic conditions that have no precedent in Scotch. Whisky develops flavour through its years in oak, with temperature and humidity shifts affecting cask-spirit interaction. Shetland has much milder seasonal temperature swings compared to mainland Scotland, while persistent sea winds ensure that the air in bonded warehouses is constantly salty. How those conditions will shape Lerwick’s single malt will only be answered by waiting.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
What follows below is our interview with Martin – a Shetlander, chartered accountant, long-time whisky collector – and now the man who has helped to bring Lerwick Distillery’s exciting plans together. We discussed what it means to give his home islands their first whisky distillery, the experience building it with Ian, and how the conditions of Shetland Islands will give the world a delicious Scotch whisky never before seen.
After our Q&A, we return to the glass with three reviews of whiskies selected and blended by Ian to sketch the style that Lerwick looks to achieve. These offer us the first clues to the flavours that Ian has in mind for Lerwick’s future single malt.
The range of whiskies bottled by Lerwick Distillery including NØRN and Up Helly Aa can be purchased directly from Lerwick Distillery both at its home in Shetland, or through its online shop. The distillery ships throughout the UK and to a growing selection of international markets.
“When the King of Denmark tried to pay the mortgage to Orkney and Shetland islands off, the King of Scotland ignored him, and they have remained part of Scotland since”
– Martin on what happened when the King of Denmark tried to redeem Orkney and Shetland, pledged to Scotland in the 1460s against his daughter’s unpaid dowry.
[88 Bamboo]: Long before there was a distillery, there was a Shetland boy with a taste for whisky and nowhere at home that made any.
Could you take us back to where that started? What did whisky mean to you when you were growing up?
[Martin Watt]: So the first thing to cover is where Shetland itself is. Shetland is a group of islands in the very far north of Scotland. They’re actually closer to Bergen in Norway than they are to Edinburgh. There are probably 108 islands, of which about 16 are populated, and there are only 23,000 people that stay there. So it’s quite quiet and quite rural, and therefore not a huge amount would have happened there.
So when I was growing up, whisky to me was something that meant having good times with friends. But it was probably also the start of my journey into whisky, because back then the advent of oil and gas in Shetland meant that Shetland was slowly becoming busier, and therefore there was a large transient workforce. At times it was a bit like the Wild West.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
So when we were younger, we saw a lot of what was happening inside the pubs from outside, and it seemed like a great party atmosphere. I think I initially behaved like that when I drank whisky, without actually appreciating it. But I’d say I appreciate it much more now, because I’ve developed my palate and I’m obviously a little bit older.
[88 Bamboo]: Lerwick Distillery stands on Market Street, but for most of the town’s life until the 1880s, that street was actually known as “Whisky Lane”.
We know that spirits have been heavily traded in the town of Lerwick since the 1600s. What Shetland has never had, until you and your friends, is an operating Scotch distillery of its own.
As a Shetlander and a whisky lover, what could you tell us about your region and its long relationship with spirits?
[Martin Watt]: So Shetland was the only place that didn’t have a whisky distillery in Scotland. I think part of the reason for that is that Shetland is culturally and historically different, because it used to be part of Scandinavia.
Shetland has a long history with spirits, as you mentioned there with the Dutch fishermen. Back in the early 1600s, the Dutch fishermen started to arrive to exploit the rich fishing grounds around Shetland. So what happened was that the people from the main town in Shetland would walk over the hills, about a 10-kilometre walk, to try and trade with the Dutch fishermen, and they eventually started setting up little shacks to trade from.
Lerwick is a bustling seaside harbour town in Shetland. The Lerwick waterfront is lined with what are known as lodberries, stone houses used by merchants with their own landing steps (Source: Shetland.org)
And one thing leads to another. Initially, it’s perhaps just swapping fish for vegetables and meat and things like that. But as the years passed, the Dutch fishermen started to bring alcoholic spirits with them. It could have been rum, it could have been gin, it could have been anything that was distilled.
And obviously, the locals didn’t want to pay tax on that. So what they did is they created a network of smuggling tunnels underneath the town, and some of them are actually still there to this very day. The illicit liquor was smuggled into the town and away into the hills, and then it would eventually find its way around the islands through the traders, and also down to mainland Scotland.
The other interesting thing that links our distillery to the history of spirits is that when Lerwick was growing up, it was a relatively new settlement. There was another settlement maybe 5 kilometres away, and our distillery is located about halfway between the two small settlements. What used to happen was that people from both settlements would meet up in the middle. This was back in the day before bars and things like that. They would meet up in the middle and they would drink together. So it became known colloquially as Whisky Lane. Our distillery is actually situated right at the top of Whisky Lane.
Dated photo taken from the Town Hall looking down Market Street (Source: Brian Smith, Shetland Museum & Archives)
It was called Whisky Lane because they drank whisky, but I would imagine they drank lots of illegal spirits and what have you. The name was adopted as a slang name, and then it formally became the name of the road we’re on as the town expanded. And it stayed like that until well into the 1880s when the local councillors decided that it wasn’t appropriate and changed its name to Market Street.
So the distillery building itself is actually 150 years old. It was originally what’s called a coach house, where individuals would have left their horses. It was long before the days of motor vehicles, so they would have left their horses there to be tended to, and they would have had their shoes changed. It’s really interesting.
And then after that, it became a soda factory. So when we were digging out the foundations to make the building a little bit bigger, we found lots of old soda bottles from about 150 years ago. It’s pretty cool.
And then latterly, it was used by a bicycle and motorcycle collector, who used to store hundreds of bicycles and motorcycles in there. When he sold the building to us, he gifted us a penny farthing. Do you know what a penny farthing is? It’s one of those really old bikes from 150 years ago, with a huge big wheel at the front and a tiny little one on the back. We’ve kept both the soda bottles and the bicycle in the distillery for people to see when they come and visit. It’s really cool and interesting.
“Whisky has never been produced in Shetland before, so we don’t know exactly what it will be like.”
– Martin on the fascination behind how Scotch produced in a new region and climate will taste.
[88 Bamboo]: What is something about Shetland or its history that would really surprise people?
[Martin Watt]: So I think the main thing, which I’ve already mentioned, is that there is still significant Scandinavian influence in terms of the history and culture of the Shetland Islands.
The backstory to that is that in 1468, the King of Denmark’s daughter was promised in marriage to the King of Scotland’s son. Back in those days, it would have been traditional for a dowry to be paid. Denmark mortgaged the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. Both groups of islands became part of Scotland since.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
The people there continued to speak a Scandinavian language, and they still followed Scandinavian law up until well into the 1900s. [Editor: Elements of Scandinavian 'udal' law remain recognised in the law of Shetland till date.] That’s why Shetland is still historically and culturally linked to Scandinavia. You’ve still got lots of words from the old Scandinavian language.
That’s actually what our whisky releases are called just now: NØRN. NØRN is the name of the old language that used to be spoken in the Shetland Islands. Because they are pre-releases of what we’re going to produce ourselves, they’re intended to reflect the movement from the old to the new. NØRN is the old language. Our new one, when we produce our own single malt, is going to be called Shaetlan Whisky. "Shaetlan" is the new language.
[88 Bamboo]: Before we take a closer look at your range of whiskies and how it’s made, could you define for us in your own words, what is the essence of Lerwick Distillery? How would you introduce Lerwick to whisky enthusiasts who are encountering Lerwick for the first time?
[Martin Watt]: Whisky has never been produced in Shetland before, so we don’t know exactly what it will be like. However, we can do lots of things to try and ensure that we’re able to produce what we hope will be a premium, world-class single malt Scotch whisky.
The main thing to introduce here is our master distiller. Unlike a lot of new distilleries who have to learn as they go along, we’ve been very lucky in that we’ve been able to secure the services of a Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame inductee by the name of Ian Millar. Ian has a career of over 50 years working for whisky distilleries, all the way up from just making the tea when he was a young boy, aged 14, up to being a global brand ambassador for William Grant & Sons. Prior to his global brand ambassador role, Ian was also the distillery manager at Balvenie and Glenfiddich, probably two of the most famous Scotch whisky distilleries in the world. I think having put that in place, we have every opportunity to be able to create a premium single malt Scotch whisky.
(Source: Whisky Magazine)
The other benefit that Ian has brought to us is the importance of thinking about our distillery from a legacy perspective and a longevity perspective. Any time that Ian was a master distiller at a distillery before, he would have just been the steward of the legacy that had been started, maybe even hundreds of years before that. Whereas this time around, Ian and myself and my business partners have all sat down and actually built the distillery from the ground up with the engineers.
It’s been designed from the ground up with the specific purpose of creating the type of whisky that we intend to produce going forward, even down to the detail of the bonded warehouse. So many old distilleries are stuck with the warehouses that they built over 100 years ago. Our bonded warehouses have been located so that the prevailing wind blows the air into the vents, and the vents are in a particular spot so that we’ve maximised circulation.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
And I suppose the other thing that we’ve got, as well as being a modern-design distillery and thinking about the ventilation within the warehouse, is that we’re likely to use technology extensively in our production. And that technology is essentially based around sensors that will give us data relating to each individual cask that we will use going forward. I don’t think there’s any other distillery in the world that’s doing that at the moment.
[88 Bamboo]: Tell us about those sensors you have monitoring the progress of maturation.
[Martin Watt]: So ideally, we want to be able to identify the areas within our bonded warehouses that produce the best whisky, and then we’ll put our best casks there at all times. Whisky appreciates in value as it ages, so if you put your best casks in the best area, you’re going to produce the best whisky. That’s what we’re aiming for.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
Whisky’s never been produced there before, so we have no idea how it will come out. I suppose the other thing that I haven’t mentioned is that the Shetland Islands lie on something called the North Atlantic Drift, which means that warmer weather comes up through the Atlantic Ocean, so we don’t have a huge temperature differential. We believe that this is going to give us ideal conditions for producing our whisky. The casks will still contract and move around, and therefore there’ll be movement in the wood that will come into the whisky.
“It might be a little bit presumptuous to hope that we’ll be able to produce the best single malt Scotch whisky in the world. But you’ve got to set your sights high, surely?”
[88 Bamboo]: While the whisky world awaits Lerwick’s single malt with bated breath, Master Distiller Ian Millar has already put together a range of bottlings that would serve as an exciting preview of what we could come to expect from Lerwick.
Your current core range, NØRN (which consists of the Atlantic, Genesis and Aurora) takes its name from the North Germanic language used in Shetland once; your Up Helly Aa 8 Years Old blend got its name from Shetland’s legendary Viking fire festival, your Smoorikin 14 Years Old blended malt refers to a kiss in local dialect, and Haad Still, the code name for your upcoming new make spirit, means “to hold on” in local dialect.
Every bottling is selected and blended by Ian, and brought down to strength with Shetland water, drawn from rare Palaeozoic metamorphic rock springs.
What could you tell us about this range of whiskies, and how they capture Lerwick’s identity?
[Martin Watt]: So most of the distilleries that Ian has been master distiller at have primarily been in Speyside. Speyside whiskies are obviously very popular, and they’re also my favourite style of whisky. Therefore, it’s probably safe to say that we will more than likely be looking to produce a Speyside-style whisky. But for all intents and purposes, we’re so far away from Speyside that it’ll essentially be a new whisky region. Even at the moment, we are over 185 kilometres away from the nearest whisky distillery in Scotland. It’s completely new territory, a new region.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
The whiskies that we are releasing at the moment are intended to be as close as possible to the whiskies that we hope to release ourselves, albeit all with a slightly different twist to them. For example, our NØRN Aurora whisky is a link back to the smugglers when the Dutch fishermen used to come. So it’s malt whisky, but it’s been overwintered and finished in a rum cask. Typically, your Speyside whisky will have notes of caramel and toffee, but the Aurora will have a little bit of spiciness to it because it’s been finished in a rum cask.
All of our whiskies are also designed so that if you add a few drops of water, the flavours will release quite significantly. And therefore they’re not intended to be drowned in water. They will taste nice straight, but they’ll taste much nicer with just a few drops of water, and that actually applies for the full range.
So essentially, we’ve got a Speyside-style whisky, which will have your typical toffee, caramel, even cinnamon, and sometimes a little bit of fruitiness to it, but they’ve all been finished in a specific manner. We call that overwintering, so we’ll have had them in our warehouse for at least a year before we release them.
The other one I’ll give you as an example is the NØRN Genesis, which is our high-end malt whisky. It has been finished in a sherry barrique cask. A barrique is a cask that’s much taller than a normal whisky barrel, and it’s also much thinner, so the whisky will have much greater contact with the wood and will draw out a lot more of the liquid that’s in the wood.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
Now I didn’t know this at the time, but a whisky cask is approximately 55 millimetres thick. I never would have imagined, looking from the outside, that it was actually that thick. And what happens when you are using a refill cask is that, for your typical whisky barrel, the wood could hold maybe close to 10 litres of sherry, for example. And that’s essentially what makes the flavour profile, because it’s drawing out the liquid that’s in the wood into the new make spirit. That’s what changes the colour of it, and also what changes the flavour. We do little experimental things like that sherry barrique.
NØRN Genesis is a small batch, usually between 450 and 500 bottles, and we’re on to batch four now. As I say, it’s the top-end whisky we’re selling at the moment.
“[At previous distilleries] Ian would have just been the steward of the legacy that had been started hundreds of years before that. Whereas this time around, Ian and myself and my business partners have all sat down and actually built the distillery from the ground up.”
[88 Bamboo]: We noticed that a couple of these whiskies are described as undergoing a period of “overwintering” in Shetland. How does this uniquely influence the whisky?
[Martin Watt]: So while the base temperature is quite stable and there isn’t a huge differential, Shetland is also the windiest place in Europe, and it’s also very difficult to get too far away from the sea. So any time there’s wind and you’re close to the sea, there’s a lot of salt in the air. And therefore, with the way that we’ve set up our bonded warehouse, the throughflow of strong wind and salty air is going to have a significant effect on the maturation conditions.
We obviously didn’t know how things would work out when we put our releases into our bonded warehouse, but we’ve now had about two years of experience.
And I’m obviously going to be biased, but I think the releases that we’ve done so far taste spectacular, just because of that method of overwintering that we’ve used. I won’t say I’m confident, but I’m really hopeful that if we’re able to apply that over a longer period of time, from five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years, then we’re going to achieve that premium single malt that we’re aiming to produce eventually.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
[88 Bamboo]: How is the climate of Shetland in general different from the mainland?
[Martin Watt]: In terms of the temperatures in the Shetland Islands, in the summer months the temperature will normally be between 15 and 20 degrees, which is probably about 5 to 10 degrees lower than on the mainland of the United Kingdom. However, it’s the opposite way around in the winter. It’ll be between 5 and 10 degrees on average. On occasions, it might drop down to freezing, but it never stays around freezing for very long, whereas on the mainland, it’ll be perhaps 5 or 10 degrees lower than in the Shetland Islands. On the mainland, you’ve got a high temperature differential. Where we are, there’s a much lower temperature differential.
But we’ve always got this constant wind. You’ll see I’ve got quite dark skin for someone that lives in the Northern Hemisphere. That’s because of the wind more than the sunshine. It’s just constantly windy.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
[88 Bamboo]: The spirit that would eventually be produced at Lerwick Distillery would be matured at the most northerly Scotch whisky distillery in the world, with a much cooler and windier climate than that of Speyside.
You’ve mentioned that Lerwick takes pride in establishing a new region for Scotch. What could you tell us about how Lerwick Distillery’s whisky would be uniquely made?
[Martin Watt]: I’ve alluded to Ian sitting down with us and actually designing the distillery from the ground up. If you bear in mind, when Ian came to work at the previous distilleries he was at, he just followed on from what the previous master distiller had done. This time around, though, we’ve designed the distillery to hopefully recreate certain elements that he thinks will be achievable.
Therefore, we will have fermenters and stills that have been purpose-built to achieve a particular style of whisky, and Ian has a rough idea as to how long each stage will take. Typically, we will be using a long mash period, a long fermentation period and a long double distillation period. We anticipate that the full process will take a good bit longer than it will at most other distilleries. So it’ll take us longer to produce the same quantity of whisky because we want to go for that slow, rounded process.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
The important thing to mention here is that because it’s a new distillery designed with legacy in mind, it’s all about legacy. So myself and Ian and everyone that’s involved at the start are hopefully going to be creating a legacy whisky that will be around for potentially hundreds of years.
[88 Bamboo]: How long would you intend to have the fermentation period set at?
[Martin Watt]: The fermentation period will actually be driven by the location of the fermenter in the distillery. Our distillery has actually been lined with larch wood, and larch wood is what you use in a sauna, and therefore it’s going to be very warm inside our distillery. However, there are fermenters located further away from the stills where it won’t be as warm. And we’ve even got fermenters located outside the distillery in thermal jackets.
It’ll depend on which fermenter we’re using on each particular day, so it could be from 70 to 80 hours up to well over 100 hours for the ones that are outside. And the different locations will be used for slightly different expressions of the single malt that we produce.
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
“That technology is essentially based around sensors that will give us data relating to each individual cask… I don’t think there’s any other distillery in the world that’s doing that at the moment.”
– Martin on the cask-by-cask sensor data Lerwick Distillery plans to gather in its bonded warehouses.
[88 Bamboo]: You will be pioneers in a new region for Scotch, and it is likely that many others will follow.
10 years from now, we imagine that the first Lerwick single malt will be out in the world for a while, and Lerwick Distillery will likely have company in Shetland.
Where do you see yourselves 10 years from now, and what kind of whisky distillery do you see Lerwick becoming, and who do you picture reaching for a bottle of Lerwick Single Malt?
[Martin Watt]: I think we have to be mindful that the demographics of alcohol consumption are changing, probably for the better. I would say that’s not necessarily good for companies that are producing alcoholic beverages.
Nevertheless, I envisage our product will be a go-to drink that will appeal to someone who’s actually quite young now will reach for on special occasions. So they’ll always have a bottle, but they might not be drinking it all the time; they’ll just reach for it on a special occasion. And therefore, it will hopefully be seen as something premium that someone will be honoured to actually own. And I’d be honoured if that ended up being the case.
It might be a little bit presumptuous to hope that we’ll be able to produce the best single malt Scotch whisky in the world. But you’ve got to set your sights high, surely?
(Source: Lerwick Distillery)
[88 Bamboo]: What do you want Lerwick to be known for by then that no other distillery could claim?
[Martin Watt]: I think because of how we’ve gone about designing the distillery, the attention to detail in how it’s laid out, what I told you earlier about the way that the bonded warehouse is laid out, and also the technology that we hope to use, I would be hopeful that our distillery will come to be seen as the blueprint for any distilleries in the future, not just ones in Scotland, but globally.
We’ve got a product that’s going to be closely associated with its geographical location, and also the stories that we can bring in from the location that we’re in, and the culture and the history. That just makes it quite unique in terms of story, legacy and longevity.
Lerwick Distillery's stillhouse when it was newly furnished (Source: Shetland News)
[88 Bamboo]: For whisky lovers who are keen to participate in Lerwick Distillery’s story, we understand that you plan to have the Haad Still Fellowship that allows members to follow the ageing of Lerwick’s spirit. There will also be the Cask Ownership Programme.
Could you tell our readers more about these programmes and what members can look forward to?
[Martin Watt]: So Haad Still and the casks will give individuals an opportunity to experience what our whiskies will be like before we actually release them. Haad Still essentially means ‘while we wait’ in the old Shetland language. Every six months for eight years, our members of the Haad Still Fellowship will receive a small sample, so over the eight-year period, they’ll be able to see how the colour and the taste profile have changed.
And likewise with the casks, anyone who buys a cask will be able to draw off from their cask up until the point that they decide that they want to bottle it.
None of these programmes are currently available to the public. As soon as we commence production, we’ll launch both programmes internationally.
[88 Bamboo]: What does building a new distillery actually look like from the inside, and what are some interesting perspectives that you’ve only come to form after embarking on this journey?
[Martin Watt]: I’d hoped, at the time when we embarked on the project, that it’d be nice and easy. Without going into details, the one thing I would take out of it would be to expect the unexpected.
We’ve had crazy things, like when we ordered some of our plant and machinery from overseas. It came through the Suez Canal when there were pirates attacking boats, and one of the ships with our plant and equipment on it got kidnapped near the Suez Canal, the canal that takes ships into the Mediterranean. There was nothing we could do. We had to wait for about three months until the ship got released by the pirates, and then we eventually got our equipment.
So little things like that, you just cannot plan for. But when you look back on them, they’re actually quite funny, and everything ended up being good in the end.
Whisky Review: NØRN Aurora 8 Years Old Blended Malt Scotch Whisky, 47% ABV
Bottled in 2025. Blend of Speyside malt whiskies, aged in American oak and married at Lerwick Distillery, then finished for an additional 6 months in Caribbean rum casks. Non-chill-filtered.
Tasting Notes
Colour: Light gold.
Aroma: Rich, rounded, led by orchard fruits and vanilla cream. Opens with golden apples, fresh apricots, turning into a clean malty sweetness of vanilla, honey, toffee, barley cereal and digestive biscuits along with a background of slate minerality. With time, some spices appear – white pepper, fresh mint leaves – along with dried tropical fruits like dried mango and candied pineapples sitting deeper.
Taste: Full-bodied, oily and dense with a very smooth and well-mellowed profile. Leads with malty, biscuity notes with vanilla, marzipan and caramel. Leading into golden apples, apricots, banana bread and some dried mango slices. It gets slightly nutty and spiced, with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and almond flakes, accented by orange oil and orange zest aromatics. Cool spearmint and a clean pithy citrusy bitterness as we enter the finish.
Finish: Medium-plus length and quite warm and spiced. We get a receding light honey sweetness, warm oak resin influences, cacao nibs, a lingering tingle of anise and spice at the back of the throat. Some lingering stone dust.
My Thoughts
This is a really generous, accessible blended malt packed full of orchard fruits front and center, and a pleasing layer of warm baking spices. I also have to say that it is remarkably well-matured and well-mellowed – it offers up generous and integrated layers of orchard fruits, biscuity malt, a heavy hand of baking spices and a light resinous close without any pepper or zing from the alcohol content.
The rum casks appear to have added some warmth and dried tropical fruit accents, which beautifully complement the Speyside orchard fruit underneath.
Whisky Review: Up Helly Aa 8 Years Old Blended Scotch Whisky, 50% ABV
Bottled in 2026. Blended 50:50 malt and grain Speyside whiskies aged in American oak, then “overwintered’ in Shetland ex-Sherry casks. Non-chill-filtered.
Tasting Notes
Colour: Deep gold.
Aroma: Also rich and rounded, but darker and more honeyed with even intensity throughout. The opening is still very orchard-fruit-driven but it comes with more luscious dried fruits and deeper notes of Manuka honey and burnt caramel. Candied orange peels with baked apples and raisins, complimented by exotic herbal notes of Chinese herbal jelly, liquorice, cassia bark, nutmeg and a thread of agarwood. As it sits, we get a darker molasses-based sweetness, palm sugar and toasted walnuts.
Taste: Full-bodied, viscous, slow-moving with some really mature fruit and oak tones. It opens sweet and herbaceous, with caramel, molasses, milk chocolate turning to oxidative overripe fruits like ripe persimmon, overripe pineapples almost turning to rancio. It slowly, seamlessly develops into more herbal sweets, liquorice with just-as-present polished antique oak, cassia, nutmeg. Candied ginger and spice building into the finish.
Finish: Medium length and quite sweet, with more on candied ginger and gingerbread biscuits. Molasses, coffee liqueur, cassia spice and fading notes of toasted coconut.
My Thoughts
This appears far weightier and more malt-driven than a typical blended Scotch. This has the same rounded shape as the NØRN Aurora expression, but there is much greater Sherried depth. That winter in Sherry casks seems to have brought out some lovely notes of candied peel, walnuts and exotic agarwood.
Fresh orchard fruits are traded for dried, oxidative fruits in a deeper, more brooding whisky with more prominent herbs and exotic spice. The lightly oily texture of the NØRN Aurora is traded for a pleasingly viscous, slow-moving texture here, while the dry and resinous finish becomes gingerbread and coffee liqueur.
Whisky Review: NØRN Genesis 12 Years Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky, 47% ABV
Bottled in 2026. Speyside single malt Scotch matured in a European oak Sherry barrique and American ex-Bourbon cask. Non-chill-filtered.
Tasting Notes
Colour: Light amber.
Aroma: Polished, incredibly refined and really well-rounded. Opens with dried heather and indistinct blue florals, then the bright confectionery sweetness of rock melon, fruit pastilles, fruit jelly cups, then fresh apples and pears. Some red berry influences, with dried cranberries and raspberries, before moving into spices. Cassia, a touch of liquorice, then smooth nutty tones of marzipan, almonds, vanilla, and a touch of chalk and slate at the foundation.
Taste: Medium-bodied, with a silky texture. It is both sweet and spiced in equal measure. It opens on caramel, butterscotch, brown sugar, vanilla and toasted coconut, then sweet apples, pears and some orange marmalade. It then leans into spiced tones of toasted almonds, cinnamon bark, mint, before sweet oak and cacao lead into the finish.
Finish: Long, toasty and grassy. All of the heat and spice has fallen away, with only lingering sweet oak tones with cocoa powder, toasted coconut flakes, caramel and vanilla lingering. There’s also a clean lightly grassy pandan sweetness to it.
My Thoughts
This appears to be the most polished and refined whisky of the range we’ve tasted. Its age and maturity are shown in its rounded mellow spices, and while the oak influences are certainly in the cocoa and nuttiness, they are always refined and polished, always in precisely balanced proportions and never asserting any tannins.
There are Sherry cask influences but rather than piling on with dried red fruits and oak, the Sherry barrique comes through in moderation, with red berries, nuttiness and spices, complementing the ex-Bourbon cask’s vanilla, coconut and melons.
These whiskies make a really convincing opening act, and a good reason for us to keep an eye on Lerwick. Under Ian Millar's hand, you can already see a clear sense of direction in these early releases. There is a common thread throughout of roundedness, clean orchard fruits, and well-matured mellowness. I should add that Ian once suggested that the target style for Lerwick’s eventual single malt would be something like a sweet and fruity “Christmas cake” character. In that regard, the NØRN Genesis 12 seems to line up perfectly with Ian’s vision.
@CharsiuCharlie
