The Abbey at Lindores was founded in 1191 by Benedictine monks of the Tironensian order, and in 1494 the now-famous dictum from King James IV delegating ‘eight bolls malt’ to Brother John Cor for the production of aqua vitae became the first written reference to whisky in the UK. The Abbey, which is in the Scottish Lowlands a few miles east of Perth, later fell on hard times and was bought in a dilapidated state by the Howison family in 1912.

In 2013, Drew Mackenzie-Smith, a descendant of the Howison family, and his wife Helen began works on a new Lindores Abbey distillery to take advantage of the site’s historical links to Scotland’s national spirit. Distillation operations commenced in late 2017, with the distillery equipped with one wash still and two spirit stills,. Lindores practises very long fermentations to help create a particularly fruity spirit. 

Since 2020 Lindores has used only barley grown locally in the fields near the Abbey, making Lindores Abbey a true field-to-bottle distillery. The distillery released their inaugural single malt whiskies in 2021.