This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Brora welcomes a new ‘Age of Peat’ as its first scotch whisky in 40 years comes of age
By Michelle Johnson | 27 June 2024 | Food & Drink, Indulge
The famed Sutherland distillery is celebrating the milestone with a new distillery exclusive
On a gloriously sunny day in the Scottish Highlands, Brora celebrated a landmark moment as its first new batch of fine scotch whisky in 40 years come of age. The legendary distillery was closed in 1983 but opened its wildcat gates once more in 2021, after a painstaking restoration project led by owners Diageo.
Celebrating the milestone, Brora has released a second distillery exclusive bottling in the Brora 44-Year-Old Untold Depths. The 150 limited edition Untold Depths honours the distillery’s ‘age of peat’ with the new release, a single cask bottling from 1977 — bottled from cask number 2637, Warehouse No 1 — and priced at £10,000.
“Untold Depths is a classic pairing of a gentle cask and medium peating, which explores the full depth of taste of which Brora is capable,” said master blender Dr Craig Wilson. “On the nose the whisky holds waxy hints of fragrant incense and green grape skins drift through light peat smoke, then dried herb and scented oil slowly rising through a swirl of buttery toffee. Waxy-smooth, the sweet, lightly fruity taste reaches a long and fragrant finish with a pinch of white pepper.”
This release not only celebrates Brora’s storied legacy of whisky-making but offers its fans and collectors important hints about the distillery’s future. Inspired by the iconic Age of Peat — the noted style expressed in Brora released between 1969 and 1981 — today’s reawakened stillhouse is once again crafting scotch in this unique style.
Related: Bentley Motors and The Macallan serve up new single malt
The first example comes in the form of the ‘new make spirit’ that filled the first new casks of the restored distillery in 2021. Now, after three years of maturation, these casks can now officially be classed as scotch whisky and can be sampled by collectors and visitors of the Eras of Brora tour.
“This year, what lies in the casks at Brora can finally be called Scotch whisky. We see this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for guests to be among the first in the world to sample this whisky in over 40 years,” said Andrew Flatt, Brora distillery host. “It is an honour to present three different styles of spirit to aficionados, collectors and fans of Brora who choose to visit our Highland home.”
Visitors to the distillery will not only get a chance to taste-test moments of whisky history, but also discover the secrets behind the £35m reawakening of Brora — from the restoration of the original copper stills and discovery of historic documents and schematics, to the current carbon neutral operation.
In 2022, Craig told Tempus: “To know you’re working with such an important part of whisky history is incredible. These casks have lain untouched for decades so it is great to be able to introduce them to the world. It’s always daunting working with such a revered whisky as Brora, there’s a great deal of pressure to do justice to the incredible craftsmanship at the distillery, and indeed the influence of time, which has shaped the individual whiskies into such spectacular examples [of Brora’s style].”