Whisky: Scotland’s holy water, its cultural force majeure, its great brined and often smoky hymn to patience, land, and craft. It is also a world policed by tweedy Caledonian purists who believe the amber liquid should only be handled by men with surnames which sound like failed ironmongers: McLaggan, McTavish, MacHaggis. Which is why the arrival of two swaggering mates from the outskirts of London, sans the requisite clan tartan or mist-drenched birthright is to some an aberration akin to deep-frying a haggis in olive oil.
The South African-born Ross Archer — quarter-Scot by way of by way of his grandmother who grew up in Portobello, Edinburgh — and his English comrade Russell Spratley, have the sheer nerve to assume that whisky might not, in fact, be the sole preserve of men who speak in a dialect of throat-clearings and glottal stops. They lack a 200-year-old distilling dynasty but what they have is far more dangerous: audacity.
Their enterprise, Spiritfilled, is not some sepulchral bottler, flogging rare malts to collectors who wouldn’t dream of drinking them. It is a revolution in a Glencairn glass, an incursion into a land where reverence often trumps enjoyment. Not rooted in the granitic folds of Speyside or the peat-reeking bogs of Islay, but in the gently rolling farmland of the Kingdom of Fife. It might be an affront to those who believe whisky must come from places where the weather could fell a cow.
Here, in a working farm beside the remnants of Lindores Abbey, they raise the Mythical Beasts series: whiskies untamed, unapologetic, and sold not as a financial instrument but as something to actually drink. Clients don’t just sign a cheque and wait. They come, they see, they touch, they taste. They stand in a Hunter-welly-green warehouse and drink their own whisky while the silvery River Tay flows by.
This irreverence inevitably caught the eye of Finn Russell, Scotland’s joyfully anarchic fly-half, a man who plays rugby like he’s making it up as he goes along. A flick of the boot, a sleight of hand, an audacious kick across the pitch — he plays with the same impish rule-breaking as Spiritfilled applies to whisky. It was over a whisky-lubricated lunch at Cut at 45 Park Lane that Russell signed up as brand ambassador. He is, in essence, a dram in human form: complex, unpredictable, occasionally devastating.
“There are a lot of similarities between whisky and rugby,” said Stirling-born Russell, who has already put down casks for his daughters. “You’ve got to put in the work, but in the end, it’s about enjoyment.” And enjoyment is something Spiritfilled takes seriously.
The Mythical Beasts collection is a middle finger to the soporific, predictable Scotch establishment. There are no gentle, caramel-cosseted vanilla drams for the risk-averse. Instead, the team champions the long-aged grain whiskies; the ghosts of dead distilleries; the mavericks making whisky which actually tastes of something. The range spans from four to 34-years-old, with no concealing caramel, no watering down, no hand-holding. The younger ones are slung into sherry, port or Cognac casks, much like a raw rugby talent is sometimes sent to France to acquire a bit of polish before taking on the world.
But Spiritfilled isn’t just about what’s in the bottle, it’s about where you drink it. Its Braeside Bond isn’t some sterile whisky vault; it is a Fife nirvana of long, peaty afternoons. Visitors can follow, tap, then sip their own whisky from a hobbit-like wooden cabin while a former session drummer for the Prodigy cooks locally reared lamb over an open fire with foraged leaves. There is clay pigeon shooting, fly-fishing, horse riding, and lodges with hot tubs and saunas, because why not? There’s that idea of enjoyment, again.
The Scotch old guard may sniff at them, these unlikely lads with their newfangled notions and rugby-star endorsements. But Archer and Spratley aren’t here to seek approval. They aren’t here to kneel before whisky’s sepia-tinted past. They’re here to shake the whole thing up – to kick whisky into the present, to rip up the tweedy rulebook and scrawl their own irreverent, riotous footnote in peat and PX casks.
And, frankly, Scotland could use a little shaking up.
Can’t afford a whole cask? Try these bottles from spiritfilled.co.uk:
Mythical Beasts Tomatin 11 (£92)
From a distillery “only a mother could love,” according to Tomatin’s master palate, Graham Eunson, the mahogany hue belies its relative youth, as do its sumptuous layers of dark chocolate, espresso, and honeyed fruit.
Mythical Beasts Port Dundas 24 (£180)
From the now-obliterated Port Dundas distillery – closed on its 200th anniversary, in an act of staggering irony – this is a sherried, raisin-stuffed, marzipan-drenched ode to lost craftsmanship.
Mythical Beasts Tobermory 30 (£360)
What’s the story, Tobermory? From Mull’s only distillery, founded in 1798 and once so unprofitable it simply shut down for 40 years, this opens with sea spray and brine before warming into porridge, toasted cereal, and the scent of a Hebridean morning.
