Ladyburn whisky

After William Grant & Sons Ltd. built a grain distillery at
Girvan in 1963, they added another set of stills (pot stills this
time) to the complex in 1966. With these stills they produced
the 'Ladyburn' malt whisky. The main purpose of both of the
distilleries was production of whisky for the Grant's blends,
but over the years a handful of 'official' single malt whiskies
were bottled as well.
 
The malt whisky distillery was located in a corner of the
Girvan grain whisky distillery. The malt whisky installation
was closed again in 1975 and demolished in 1976, but the
(single) grain whisky from Girvan is still sold today under the
name Black Barrel. This makes Ladyburn (possibly) the malt
whisky distillery with the shortest history in all Scotland; it
was operational for less than a decade.
 
The short production history is one of the reasons that
Ladyburn is mostly of interest for malt whisky collectors.

1) Ladyburn used to use six stainless stell washbacks.

2) The grain stills at Girvan went into production on Christmas day in 1963.

3) More trivia about the Ladyburn distillery may or may not be added later.
If you are a reputable source you can help me out by submitting some more trivia... ;-)
 

Ladyburn 31yo 1975/2007 'Rare Ayrshire' (47.5%, Signatory, Oval, Bourbon, C#554, 165 Bts.)
Nose: Starts with with a punch. A fairly strange combination of vinegar and citrus. Some old, wet mop?
Certainly not boring. Some dry woody notes and faint garden spices like basil and rosemary perhaps?
Palate: Starts off big and round - but not to sweet. The mouth feel resembles a grain whisky or maybe Irish.

Score: 79 points - which is just a tad disappointing, given the hefty price tag on this (admittedly beautiful) bottle.
But then again I assume that this type of bottlings is bought mostly by collectors anyway.

Ayrshire 30yo 1975/2005 (48,9%, Wilson & Morgan, Ladyburn distillery, C#3376, 223 Bts.)
Nose: Phew…. Pretty unique. Very old (rotting?) leather in the nose. 
I put it in the lower 80's during my first try but on closer inspection I actually think this one deserves silver.
Not terribly expressive but a lot of subtle complexities.
Taste: Oil on the palate. A third try even showed more to love.
During round three (and given enough time) it climbed up further to 89 points.
Score: 89 points - one of my favourites at the Malt Maniacs Awards 2006.

Ladyburn 27yo 1973/2000 (50.4%, OB by William Grant)
Nose: Very peculiar, but not unpleasant at all. A strange combination of peanuts and cinnamon.
Taste: Pretty peculiar on the palate too. Sardines! Then lots of wood & fruit. Good mouth feel; quite 'chewy'.
Score: 82 points - not bad at all, but this was actually my least favourite expression for a long time.
 

These were not all the (official & independent) expressions of Ladyburn whisky I've tried over the years.
My Track Record used to contain a complete overview of all the single malts I've tried, but when I passed the 2000 malts mark (and the complete whisky list wouldn't fit on two separate HTML pages anymore) I gave up. My Liquid Log still contains my tasting notes on most single malts I've sampled and scored, though. You can find a specific expression through the search box at the top of each distillery profile. The mAlmanac now contains (purely personal) selections of some of the best single malts and the worst whiskies I've tried so far - as well as the ones with the highest 'Bang-For-Your-Buck' value. But those tasting notes and scores only reflect my own, purely personal opinions.
 
On Serge's distillery profile on Whiskyfun you can find another perspective on the whisky made at this distillery.
Check out the Malt Maniacs Monitor on Malt Maniacs for my scores on all expressions I've tried so far - and those of almost all the other certified malt maniacs as well. The Malt Maniacs Matrix contains a few thousand single malts that were sampled and scored by at least four different malt maniacs, so you can compare our individual opinions.
 
 

That being said, most of the expressions I've tried so far all scored well in the 80's.
Many 'high profile' distilleries can't boast about results like these, so it would seem that Ladyburn is one of the few obscure distilleries that actually produced malt whiskies that were worth hunting down. However, bottlings are just so rare that you'll probably never find more than a dozen different expressions.

Ladyburn is NOT Ladybank...

Some of those bottlings were not even bottled under the name 'Ladyburn', but under the name 'Ayrshire' - the name of the area where the 'Girvan' distillery is located. Based on our experience so far it would seem that the bottlers Signatory Vintage and Wilson and Morgan both used this 'pseudonym' for Ladyburn.
 
I've sampled one expression by Italian bottler Wilson & Morgan that was released as 'Ayrshire' (this was actually my personal favourite with a score of 89 points), while Signatory Vintage releases its bottlings of Ladyburn under the 'Ayrshire' name as well.

It seems that the Ladybank distillery will remain a pipe dream forever. It was one of those schemes where 'Joe Public'
was offered the rare opportunity to invest in a brand new whisky distillery. Like with many other similar schemes, the
rewards (or at least part of them) would be reaped in the form of 'free' whisky after the distillery was up and running.

Ladyburn should not be confused with Ladybank, another Lowland distillery.
Well, another SUPPOSED Lowland distillery, close to the Daftmill micro-distillery.

Unfortunately, many of those pipe dreams remained just that...
In those cases, the investors were left behind befuddled; how could
it have gone so wrong? The site and/or brochure looked so good...
So, keep in mind that FRAUD & WHISY BLEND WELL TOGETHER!
 
And even if the distillery project is a success and manages to get
through the first few difficult years, investing in casks or bottles that
have not yet been produced remains a risky business. That's even
the case when you're buying future casks or bottles from a well
established distillery. The risks are even greater in the case of a
distillery that's not even be operational yet - and may never be.
 
Anyway - that seems to be the case with Ladybank - but Ladyburn
is an altogether different story.  Nevertheless, bottles of from the
Ladyburn distillery are almost as rare as bottles from Ladybank.
 
Should you find an affordable bottle: that may be your only chance.

And I'm afraid that's about it as far as the history of the Ladyburn distillery goes...
But don't despair - you can read on for some trivia and a few tasting notes on the few bottlings I've sampled.