Brora and Clynelish: Whisky & History - Justerini & Brooks

This small town in the north packs a punch when it comes to the whisky, industrial and football worlds. Brora’s famous exports include coal, boats, salt, cured fish, lemonade and most famously whisky. Brora was the first place in the north of Scotland to have electricity thanks to its wool industry. This distinction gave rise to the local nickname of “Electric City”. This same electrical current runs through the mighty Brora Rangers football team who have punched way above their league winning numerous Highland league titles and even beating SPL teams from the central belt. Alongside all of this, Brora is also home to one of the world’s most famous ghost distilleries, recently brought back from the dead to make whisky once again.

This Brora is an unrepeatable gem from the last three American oak hogsheads filled from the last distillation of the year on the 15th December 1977. In that cold and unusually dry December, as this last distillation ran into cask, the distillery was reaching the end of what we call its Age of Peat. 1968 was a tough year for Islay, uncharacteristically high temperatures led to a drought on the island, meaning that the Port Ellen maltings ran out of water entirely affecting other distilleries such as Lagavulin and Caol Ila - the latter largely making up a peated proportion of blended whisky. The baton of creating this peated whisky for blending then passed on to Brora. The peat used at Brora had a unique character, different from Islay malts. It is believed that barley malted over its ‘reek’ gave Brora its classic sweet peat style. You could say that this 45-year-old bottling is from some of the last peated Brora pre its closure in 1983.

When we head up this far into the Highlands, we absolutely cannot miss out Clynelish. One of my personal favourite distilleries, and quite literally a stone’s throw from Brora (although I certainly wouldn’t want to test that). Clynelish was founded in 1819 by the Duke of Sutherland, one of Scotland’s most powerful landowners. It was one of the earliest purpose-built malt whisky distilleries, expressly created to provide work for his tenants. This waxy malt is something of a cult whisky to those “in the know”. Even before the new distillery was built in 1967-8 Clynelish had many devotees, including bon viveur Professor George Saintsbury. In “Notes from A Cellar Book”, a friend said his Clynelish blend was “the best whisky he had ever drunk”. This 2014 Special Release with no age statement is a marvellous example of pure Clynelish. Vibrant. Clean, sweet, fruity and full flavoured, with the warmth of hot peppers and a creamy butterscotch sweetness with a note of licorice.