Description

A 21 year old Brora whisky. Bottled at cask strength by Diageo as part of their Rare Malts series – a historic selection of single malt whiskies from operational and lost distilleries that were released by Diageo between 1995 and 2005. This Brora was distilled in 1977 before being bottled in October 1998. This is bottle number 1755.

The Brora distillery was built in 1819, it was known as “Clynelish” until the opening of the Clynelish Distillery in 1967, whereupon the name of the original Clynelish distillery was closed for 6 months before reopening in 1969 Brora. In early 1983, production at Brora was stopped and the distillery was closed and dismantled.

On 9 October 2017 Diageo announced that it would re-open the Brora distillery and on 19 May 2021 it was announced the reopening was complete and the first new cask of spirit had been filled.

Colour: pale gold.

Nose:
This is a perfect example, these vintages were still very peaty. It starts extremely coastal, really on oysters and any other living beings from the sea, before some typical whiffs of brown coal and ‘farmyard’ would start to emerge. What’s sure is that, after all those years, maybe is that the effect of perfect bottle ageing? With water: gets awesomely medicinal. Old-style mercurochrome and wet crushed limestone. Very pure, with a farminess that’s, well, gone.

Taste:
(Neat): fantastically lemony. Salted lemon cake and oysters with lemon. It is extremely compact, which is totally an asset in this context. With water: perfect zing. Crystal clean coastal peat, more coastal than any Islays.

Finish:
Long, mustard-dry finnish.