Little Brown Dog Invergordon 7 Year Old
Key Facts About This Bottle
Bottler: Little Brown Dog
Distillery: Invergordon
Region: Highlands, Scotland
Age: 7 years old
Distilled: 06/11/2017
Bottled: 29/10/2025
Spirit: High rye
Cask Type: Small batch new American Oak barrels
Alcohol by Volume: Cask strength, 58.8%
Bottled: Natural colour and without chill filtration
Outturn: 300 bottles
Bottle Size: 700ml
Invergordon 7 Year Old Tasting Notes
Colour: Mid century furniture.
Nose: Kirchwasser, pumpkin spice, pencil case.
Palate: Pancakes and maple syrup, candied violet petals, Soreen malt loaf.
Finish: Spearmint, rosemary, nutmeg.
About this Little Brown Dog release
When is a bourbon whisky not a bourbon whisky? When it’s a high rye spirit drink distilled in Scotland… Catchy title.
Well this requires a little explanation, doesn’t it? To everyone except SDVS and the SWA this is a Scottish Bourbon. A mashbill of wheat, corn, malted barley and rye, fermented, then column distilled and matured for 7 years in virgin American oak casks. It was distilled at Invergordon by an American bourbon maker who was instructed to “do everything the same as you would do in America”, which they duly did. Unfortunately, from a spirit classification perspective, this means we are unable to call this a bourbon or even a single grain Scotch whisky. Why? Because they pitched enzymes during fermentation. Normally, in Scotch Whisky production, this would not happen; it’s not permitted in the same way we’re not allowed to use cider casks or use stainless steel stills. Pitching natural enzymes increases yield by more efficiently breaking down the grains in the mash and making the sugars more accessible to the yeast during fermentation, but is not permitted under Scotch whisky legislation, so Little Brown Dog have called this a high rye Scottish spirit drink, high rye because of the mash bill but this would have been a bourbon mash and not a rye whisky as it is less than 51% rye. They hint at this on the label with an incredibly subtle background image of bourbon biscuits…
Andrew and Chris are self-confessed spirit nerds (they hide it so well, don’t they?!). They love the diversity of the world of whisky, and this intriguing spirit has a great story - highlighting some of the greyer areas in the legislation. There aren’t many bottlers out there who could bottle something like this but Little Brown Dog customers (including yours truly) are as nerdy as they and have a great understanding of the process. Fundamentally though, this is just great liquid (almost called it whisky there) and at a great price, an opportunity for us all to experience what a bourbon-style of whisky, distilled in Scotland would taste like.
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Meet The Founders
Dr Andrew Smith and Chris Reid