Distillery produces ‘first’ Scottish cider brandy

A Scottish distillery has teamed up with a craft cider maker to produce what it claims is the first cider brandy made using Scottish apples.

Perthshire-based Strathearn Distillery and Dunbar-based craft cider maker Thistly Cross have produced the Scottish cider brand using Thistly Cross Cider, distilled and matured in virgin oak casks, which they believe to be the first of its kind from Scotland.

“Distilling cider was something I’d always been interested in, so I applied for a cider licence when I built the whisky distillery, just in case!” said Tony Reeman-Clark, founder of Strathearn Distillery

“The plan started to come together when I passed Thistly Cross on a train. I hadn’t realised that there was a cider maker in Scotland so, from that point, everything clicked into place.  A few months later, Peter and I bumped into each other at an event in London and that’s when our cider brandy journey began!”

The first batch of Scottish cider brandy has been matured in virgin French and American oak casks, with the two companies hoping to emulate the success of Normandy’s Calvados – an apple cider brandy.

“Cider brandy tends to be produced in parts of the world with strong cider making heritage, such as the Calvados region in Normandy,” said Peter Stuart, head cidermaker at Thistly Cross Cider.

“Traditionally, Scotland hasn’t been thought of as a big producer of cider, but we’ve changed that perception in recent years. This, along with Scotland’s world-renowned spirits industry, spurred us on to try something new. We are both proud to be contributing to Scotland’s distilling heritage.”

Just 200 bottles of the limited run brandy will be released, with two more casks ready to be bottled for a future release.