Brora — Highland, Scotland · Spirit type: Malt · Founded: 1819 · Closed: 1983 · Status: Dismantled
Key facts
| Region | Highland |
|---|---|
| Country | Scotland |
| Spirit type | Malt |
| Status | Dismantled |
| Founded | 1819 |
| Closed | 1983 |
Brora — History & notes
The distillery at Brora, on Sutherland's east coast, was built in 1819 by the Marquess of Stafford and worked for almost 150 years under the name Clynelish. When a modern Clynelish was built alongside it in 1967, the old stillhouse was kept running and renamed Brora in 1968 — the reason two names share one site and confuse first-time buyers.
Between roughly 1969 and 1973 Brora ran heavily peated to cover an Islay shortfall, and those years became the whisky's legend: a smoky, waxy Highland style nobody was making on purpose. The distillery closed in May 1983 and stood as a shell for decades until Diageo rebuilt it stone by stone and restarted distilling on 19 May 2021, with the original mash tun and restored stills.
Flavour profile
Beeswax and old leather with farmyard peat smoke, mineral salt and a long dry finish — closer to a coastal Islay than to its Clynelish neighbour.
Bottlings & collector track record
- Rare Malts and the annual Special Releases from the mid-1990s on carried the name through the silent years, mostly at 30 years and above.
- The 2021 Brora Triptych marked the reopening with three bottlings chosen to show the distillery's different eras side by side.
- Vintage matters more than age here: 1972 and 1973 casks are the peated peak, while later-1970s and early-1980s spirit is noticeably gentler.
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