Distilleries in the Lowlands region

During my formative years I've never been particulary fond of Lowland malts, but more recently a few very good experiences with young Bladnochs and older expressions from Rosebank and Saint Magdalene / Linlithgow have managed to tickle my fancy. I imagine the cask in which the whisky has matured is even more important for a Lowland malt than for other malt whiskies. Perhaps this has something to do with the triple distillation that is supposed to produce a light, clean spirit. In general, the more often a spirit is distilled, the more elements are removed from it, leaving just alcohol and water.

Ailsa Bay
Auchentoshan
Bladnoch
Daftmill
Glenkinchie
Glen Flagler
Inverleven
Kinclaith
Ladyburn
Littlemill
Rosebank
Saint Magdalene

Arguably, these ingredients give a drink its character. It's easy to distinguish a grappa from a cognac and a whisky from a calvados. If these liquors would be distilled more often, they would start to resemble each other much more closely. In the end, you would end up with (almost) pure alcohol - it will get you drunk just as quickly as whisky or cognac, but the taste itself doesn't provide a lot of pleasure. Besides, there's already a product that has these traits: vodka. There's no need to invent the wheel twice, is there?

Meanwhile, here's a picture of some ruins of Hadrian's Wall that runs along the border between the Highlands and the Lowlands. The 73 mile long wall running from coast to coast was built almost two thousand years ago by the Roman emperor Hadrian - or rather by some people working for him. Looking at the remains of the wall it's hard to imagine how this wall managed to keep hordes of Picts (the earlier inhabitants of Scotland) out of the Roman empire, but the wall was actually a lot higher back then - and the people a lot shorter.

Life was (relatively) civilised South of Hadrian's wall, while daily life in the North was much more primitive and 'barbaric'. I know all this has very little to do with single malt whisky. In fact, the stuff wouldn't even be invented for many centuries to come, but the story behind the building of the ancient defensive wall is so captivating that I couldn't help mentioning it here. You can find a lot more information on this subject on Wikipedia, of course...

The Lowlands are also known as 'a' Ghalldachd' - which means 'non-Gaelic region'. In whisky terms, the region is usually regarded as the circled area shown at the right, which includes traditional Scottish counties like Ayrshire, Berwickshire, Dumfriesshire, East Lothian, Mid-Lothian, West Lothian, Fife and Wigtownshire. In a broader sense, many Scots consider anything that is NOT in the Highlands as part of the Lowlands. By that definition, Shetland and Orkney are classified as belonging to the Lowlands as well...
 
During the 1850s, almost every sizeable town in the Lowlands had its own distillery that supplied both the local needs and demand from the English market. Their location was ideal for trade with England and the style of the Lowland whiskies (unpeated and triple distilled) was better suited to the English tastes.

Archaeological evidence has shown that this border between England and Scotland was the front-line of civilisation at the time - much like it is today...

Two reasons for the diminished number of Lowland distilleries might be the public demand for more expressive malt whiskies on one end and the technological changes that have enabled the industry to produce light whiskies elsewhere too.