Clynelish and Brora – A tale of two distilleries by Dominiek Bouckaert

Joins us for a fantastic trip on the east coast of Scotland into the small Northern Highland community of Brora. Just outside the village on your left, there’s a big distillery called Clynelish. Nowadays it’s renowned as the heart of many a good blended whisky, and highly appreciated by single malt whisky enthusiasts.
But is not that story were about to tell you. It’s the story about that other closed distillery, sleeping on the other side of the road. The ‘old’ Clynelish distillery, later gaining a huge reputation as Brora, the Islay whisky of the Highlands. Learn more about it’s exciting history. Find out how and why it became Brora and why afficionados of malt go bezerk when someone offers them a Clynelish 65 or a Brora 72.
We’ll be diving into the archives and talking to collectors. Follow us on our search for the old distillery crew and the oldest bottle of Clynelish.

Clynelish and Brora. Two names, one past.

Springbank, the Odd distillery by Bram van Glabbeek.

For me Springbank is a unique distillery. Still family owned and running the whole process on site. It is not only about the local barley, their own malting floors, the Kiln, the different types of Whisky they make (Springbank, peated Longrow and triple distilled Hazelburn), the bottling hall next door, a living legend Frank McHardy, the famous whisky from old and future times…. No this is also a distillery about the Campbeltown community. Because Springbank employs local people, use local barley and do the whole production process in Campbeltown they really mean something for the locals in the former whiskycapital of the world.

This can be the story about whisky and the people making it. How Springbank survived in a town which had once more than 30 official distilleries. How they made legendary whisky in the sixties. How Springbank is surviving after hard times for the whiskymarket in the eighties. How they make fantastic golden liquid now.

Auchentoshan by Mark Dermul.

Auchentoshan is often neglected as it is ‘only’ a Lowland whisky, while in fact Auchentoshan is unique for several reasons:

1- triple distillation

2-Rachel Barrie, famous whisky creator with Glenmorangie/Ardbeg, recently joined the Auchentoshan ranks where she is already hard at work introducing new wood management (see, for example, the exquisite new releases for travel retail).

3-It is my favourite distillery J Working on this episode would be a dream come true.

4-It is one of the few distilleries where the tour is fun and informal, instead of the typical sales pitch that you often hear at other distilleries

5-The former distillery manager and head distiller Jeremy Stephens is a personal friend, so we can really go in-depth and reveal all the secrets of Auchentoshan.

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