Good Lowland Scotch

[scottyg354]

My mother ancestors came to america from Ayrshire. I am looking for a good single malt from this area in the lowlands. Any suggestions. I love Scotch with a darker apperance and it has to be peat with good toffee notes. New to the whole tasting thing so if this sounds kind of goofy sorry. :D

[BourbonDrinker]

The lowlands aren't exactly known for peated whisky. Quite the opposite actually.
Your closest bet, outside of some independent, limited bottling, is probably a peated Isle of Arran. Longrow from Springbank would work as well, but it's technically Cambletown and not lowland.

[jwise]

TheEtherMan is correct. "Good" and "Lowland" don't usually go together... ;)

Honestly, the best lowland is the Auchentoshan Three Wood, but it doesn't have the flavor profile you described.

[Legion]

There are several good Lowlands from which to choose; the rub is that many of them are from distilleries that are now silent and there are few left in the region, so in this case, geography is your adversary.

By tradition, and this is not uniformly true, Lowlanders are unpeated and in some cases are triple distilled (rather than the standard double) resulting in a dram that is lighter and less rich than you are describing.

That said, Auchentoshan Three Wood is worth trying. I get toffee and caramel from Auchentoshan 12 and 18. I would also keep an eye out for Glenkinchie Distiller's Edition, Signatory's unchillfiltered bottling of 16-year Bladnoch, and a John McDougall bottling of Bladnoch.

Good luck!

[BourbonDrinker]

Bladnoch makes a lightly peated bottling that could be ordered from the UK.
They also have a heavily peated offering, but I'm not sure if it's for sale yet.