Aedan Andrejus Burt, who overcame life-changing injuries in a car crash as a toddler and went on to found a Fife whisky company, has died aged 29.
Together with his friend Iain Mundy, Aedan created Fib Whisky, an independent bottler based in St Andrews and working with a bond in Auchtermuchty.
Aedan was just three when his life changed after a crash caused by a foreign driver in Fife in March 1996.
The quick actions of his mother, medical practitioner Dr Sophie Elizabeth Jans, saved his life but Aedan was left paralysed from the neck down.
Dr Jans and her husband, Dr Jack Fyffe Burt, adapted the family home and subsequently built a property in Culross where Aedan grew up with his elder brother, Calum Rory Burt.
He was educated at Culross Primary School and then Queen Anne High School in Dunfermline.
At school, Aedan loved classics and went on to obtain an honours degree in the subject at St Andrews before undertaking his masters.
University life had introduced him to the varied world of whisky so he put PhD studies on hold to begin a brewing and distilling course at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
Loss
However, tragedy again hit the family when his brother Calum, who was studying physics at Cambridge University, died in a freak accident aged 20. The brothers both had a passion for whisky and he was partly inspired to found Fib in his memory.
Aedan’s father struggled to recover from the loss of Calum and died suddenly in early 2021.
During his time at St Andrews University, Aedan had become involved with the whisky society, rose to become its president and became a member of Lindores Abbey Sensory Panel.
Speciality
In 2021, working with Iain, Aedan founded Fib Whisky. It specialises in bottling cask strength malt whisky straight from the barrel.
Only half of the barrel is bottled. The rest is finished in either wine, brandy or sherry barrels for a second release.
It is very much a Fife enterprise. The casks are stored in the Kingdom and even the labels are printed there.
Fib Whisky is named after King Fib, a mythological Pictish king of Fife, a people his father Jack took a great interest in.
Both Aedan and Iain were Scottish independence supporters and poured their own bottle of Bowmore straight from the cask which was being kept for the day Scotland becomes independent.
Iain said: “Aedan died suddenly and unexpectedly after taking ill. Myself, his mum Sophie, his family, carers and friends are still struggling to come to terms with this sudden loss.
”The whisky world will definitely be a lesser place without his larger-than-life presence. I hope that wherever Aedan is now, he’s sharing a dram with his brother Calum, and father Jack.”
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