You have to move fast to keep up with fashions in the food world. If you thought you could still impress your dinner guests by knowing the name of the Venezuelan farmer who picked the beans for your single-estate chocolate, you’d better up your game. The buzz now is all about “co-creation”, where you buy into your own foodie community. There’s Fordhall Farm in Shropshire, which sold 5,500 shares at £50 apiece to save it from developers. Or Nudo, an Italian olive grove that repays investors in olive oil and soap. At Number One Pig you can pick your own porker, watch it grow on the internet and then have it delivered in handy pieces for your freezer. You can adopt your own oak tree in France and receive any truffles that happen to grow in its shade. And now – every drinker’s fantasy – you can own your own distillery.

For a sum from £3,250 to £5,000, 1,250 investors in Ladybank Comp­any of Distillers Club in Fife will be entitled to six bottles of single malt a year for 50 years. By my calculations that’s little over £10 a bottle – a bargain. But, at present, the distillery is a dilapidated mill and cluster of farm buildings; it will be at least eight to ten years before you enjoy your first “dividend”; and that £10 doesn’t include duty, tax, bottling or delivery. And then, how do you know it will be any good?

By the appliance of science and keeping things small, claims founder James Thomson. “Understanding the chemistry of whisky-making is very acute now,” he says. “You can buy whole manuals just on how yeasts react with sugar during fermentation. We’ve had top chemists create samples for us. It’s a bit like hiring the best chef and saying we are going to use the best ingredients and that we only want to serve small numbers. The chances of being successful are very high if you stick to those rules.”

Thomson plans to produce four styles of whisky: an “unmasked” single malt, a heavily peated style normally associated with Islay whiskies, a sherried style and one using different malting techniques, such as wood smoke instead of peat.

Hang on. Doesn’t that go against all we hold dear about whisky: how a Speyside, for example, will taste different from a Highland whisky because of the “terroir”, or region where it’s made? “Oh, that’s a load of baloney dreamt up by a marketing guy in the Eighties,” says Thomson, himself a former whisky marketing guy. “You can make an Islay-style whisky in Tibet, if you like. You just need the right climate for maturing, but that’s as far as it goes.”

But, but… What about the water? More baloney, I’m afraid. “It’s part of the heathery mists romanticisation of whisky-making, a bit like salmon producers saying Scotland is a very pure place from which to buy your salmon. That might or might not be the case, but it’s a nice story. Water’s not unimportant, but by far the most important contributor is the oak casks in which maturation takes place.”

What do they make of that up the road at Glenmorangie, a distillery that makes great play of its unique water supply from the Tarlogie Springs? Master distiller Bill Lumsden admits that of all the different elements of making whisky, water is the one we understand the least, but he believes it is absolutely key to the flavour of the base spirit. “True, you can impart all sorts of flavours during maturation, but then you lose the house character and expression of your brand. After all, you wouldn’t expect Château d’Yquem to start using cabernet sauvignon grapes, would you?”

Ladybank Company of Distillers (0845 4501885; www.whisky.co.uk)

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