About Brora Whisky Distillery
Distillery Founded
1819
Distillery Address
Brora, Sutherland
Distillery Status
Closed
Distillery Owner
Diageo
1819
The Marquis of Stafford, 1st Duke of Sutherland, founds the distillery as Clynelish Distillery.
1827
The first licensed distiller, James Harper, files for bankruptcy and John Matheson takes over.
1828
James Harper is back as licensee.
1834
Andrew Ross takes over the license.
1846
George Lawson & Sons takes over.
1896
James Ainslie & Heilbron takes over and rebuilds the facilities.
1912
James Ainslie & Co. narrowly escapes bankruptcy and Distillers Company Limited (DCL) takes over together with James Risk.
1916
John Walker & Sons buys a stake of James Risk’s stocks.
1925
DCL buys out Risk.
1930
Scottish Malt Distillers (SMD) takes over.
1931
The distillery is mothballed.
1939
Production restarts.
1960
The distillery becomes electrified (until now it has been using locally mined coal from Brora).
1967
A new distillery is built adjacent to the first one, it is also named Clynelish and both operate in parallel from August.
1968
‘Old’ Clynelish is mothballed in August.
1969
‘Old’ Clynelish is reopened as Brora and starts using a very peaty malt over the next couple of years
1983
Brora is closed in March.
1995
Brora 1972 (20 years) and Brora 1972 (22 years) are launched as Rare Malts.
1996
Brora 1975 (20 years) is launched as a Rare Malt.
1998
Brora 1977 (21 years) is launched as a Rare Malt.
2001
Brora 1977 (24 years) is launched as a Rare Malt.
2002
A 30 year old cask strength is released in a limited edition.
2003
Brora 1982 (20 years) is launched as a Rare Malt.
2006
The fifth release of Brora 30 year old.
Reproduced from the Malt Whisky Yearbook 2009 with the kind permission of Mr Ingvar Ronde