Arran Machrie Moor First Edition

The Machrie Moor First Edition was released on 8 December 2010, marking Arran's first commercial entry into peated whisky after six years of experimental peated production at Lochranza. The name comes from a windswept peat bog on the west coast of the Isle of Arran, an area dotted with Bronze Age standing stones and stone circles, including the stone where the legendary warrior Fingal is said to have tethered his hound Bran. The label artwork depicts Bran, and the release was capped at 9,000 bottles worldwide. The success of this first edition led directly to the establishment of an annual Machrie Moor programme and eventually to the construction of Lagg distillery for dedicated peated production in 2019.

Arran had been distilling peated spirit since 2004 in dedicated short runs at Lochranza, using malt peated to around 14 parts per million phenols. After approximately six years of maturation in ex Bourbon American oak barrels, the spirit was vatted for the First Edition release. Bottled at 46% without chill filtration and without added colouring.

The 14ppm peating level positions Machrie Moor at the lighter end of peated Scotch, well below Islay levels but enough to deliver clear phenolic character. The peat used at the malting stage contributes guaiacol, cresols and methyl phenols absorbed by the barley husks during kilning, which survive distillation and integrate during maturation. The Bourbon cask underlay provides vanillin and lactone structure that the peat smoke layers on top of, producing the characteristic young Arran fresh fruit underneath the smoke.