Little Brown Dog Spirits is one of the most interesting of the new wave of Scottish independent distillers and bottlers that have sprung up in recent times. Founded in Aberdeen in 2018 by Andrew Smith and Chris Reid, the company name references Smith’s pet, Banksy, and their activities include making unusual small batch gins and bottling rum, cognac and calvados as well as single malt, blended malt, single grain whiskies and American whiskey.

Although their distillery is tiny, comprising a 10 litre pot still and a larger 100-litre still for rectifying neutral grain spirits, Little Brown Dog have made a virtue of their small size and rural location. Many of the botanicals for LBD gins are foraged locally and the company has a refreshingly eccentric character, eschewing over-earnest marketing in favour of puns, parody and subversion of cliché - a recent American rye whiskey was named Li'l Brown Dawg, while blended malts appear as Wee Mongrel and their Calvados is bottled as Petit Chien Brun. 

Behind the wisecracks, though, it’s clear that the LBD team take quality extremely seriously, as the high standard of their output attests. The original LBD, Banksy, sadly passed away in 2022 and was commemorated by an outstanding cask strength peated Ardnamurchan from a refill Oloroso sherry cask. Little Brown Dog have a short history speckled with excellent single cask and small batch drams, and are definitely an indie bottler to watch for the future.