RAER Inaugural Release 48.7% abv

It’s an exciting moment when any distillery puts out its first release. Particularly so for RAER, the first single malt from the independent Jackton Distillery, owned and run by the Kean family and based in rolling farmland just south of Glasgow.

Headed up by Jaynie Kean, the distillery laid down its first cask in 2020 and is moving towards a full grain-to-glass operation at a time when traceability and sustainability are becoming increasingly important to the industry. They built a full malting facility on site in 2025 and have turned the surrounding fields to producing around three hundred tonnes of barley a year to feed their bespoke stills.

Their Inaugural Release – Batch No.1 – is intended as a snapshot, capturing the distillery’s patient journey towards field-to-bottle; it’s about showing the work, rather than pretending everything’s been perfected overnight. The release is composed from whiskies aged in different styles of sherry hogsheads, with oloroso, Amontillado and Pedro Ximénez each bringing its own particular, nuanced variety of richness, and a small proportion of bourbon cask matured liquid rounding out the batch. It’s a layered approach, designed to build a full-flavoured whisky without overpowering the spirit.

Limited to 6,000 individually hand-numbered bottles, the Inaugural Release is presented at 48.7% abv, non-chill filtered and at natural colour. There will be future RAER Single Malt releases and future batches. But there will only ever be one Batch No.1! And while it is collectable, Jackton Distillery have made it to be opened, shared and remembered.

It’s a rich, generous dram, with inviting notes of fruitcake, sultanas and figs on the nose, an indulgent palate loaded with dark stone fruits, treacle and roasted nuts, and a finish elegantly dotted with toffee, sweet spice and soft oak.