Brora distillery is a producer of

single malt Scotch whisky Single malt Scotch refers to single malt whisky made in Scotland. To qualify for this category, a whisky must have been distilled at a single distillery using a pot still distillation process and made from a mash of malted barley. Therefore, a s ...

based in

Brora Brora ( , gd, Brùra) is a village in the east of Sutherland, in the Highland area of Scotland. Origin of the name The name ''Brora'' is derived from Old Norse and means "river with a bridge". History Brora is a small industrial village, ha ...

, Scotland. It operated between 1819 and 1983 before being mothballed until 2021, when it was it was reactivated.

History

The Brora distillery was built in 1819 by the Marquess of Stafford, although it was known as "Clynelish" until the opening of the Clynelish Distillery in 1968, whereupon the name of the original Clynelish was changed to "Brora". Between May 1969 and July 1973, Brora produced a heavily peated whisky to supply for blending; this was done to cover a shortage of

Islay whisky Islay whisky is Scotch whisky made on Islay ( ) or ''Ìle'' in Gaelic, one of the southernmost of the Inner Hebridean Islands located off the west coast of Scotland. Islay is one of five whisky distilling localities and regions in Scotland w ...

caused by a

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

in that region. Most of the whisky produced as Brora after 1973 is in the lightly peated Highland style. In early 1983, production at Brora was stopped and the distillery was mothballed. The release of the 1972 Brora 40 year old in 2014 was the most expensive single malt ever released by Diageo at the time, with a retail price of £7,000. On 9 October 2017 Diageo announced that it will re-open the Brora distillery with production resuming in 2020. On 19 May 2021 it was announced the reopening was complete and the first new cask of spirit had been filled.

References

External links

Official website
{{Coord, 58, 01, 30, N, 3, 52, 05, W, region:GB-HLD_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title 1819 establishments in Scotland 1983 disestablishments in Scotland Scottish malt whisky Distilleries in Scotland Brora British companies disestablished in 1983 British companies established in 1819 Diageo