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A brief report from a visit in Sutherland, 28-30 November 2024

November is a very busy period for the whisky trade, with lots of whisky fairs, so that the distillers can show their new products and the clients (and whisky connoisseurs) to make their selection for Christmas (often for themselves). However, at the site of production and especially in visitor centres in Scotland, is a rather quite season.
At Brora distillery, they organised their first Brora By Night whisky experience and decided to join the first one, in order to taste not only the triptych, but also a unpeated and peated distillate, as well as a 3 YO whisky cask sample.

By chance, after the heavy snow falls of last week, the rain and warmer weather succeeded in melting the snow, so I could drive safely from Aberdeen to Brora.
On Friday, the sky was rather cloudy and after stopping the night before in Keith, the traffic was rather light. On the way to the Sutherland, the work at Dalmore is still going more, after more than 2 years of work. It should be completed by next summer, but this will be a VIP hosting centre, thus not opened to the public. At Glenmorangie, the Stillhouse distillery was shining and the visitor car park empty.

The Thompson Bros bottle shop

My first stop was at the Dornoch Bottle shop to pay a short call to Phil and Simon Thompson. The bottle shop which serves now as the office for Thomson is also a small shop selling a nice selection of their “independent bottler”. Hopefully, the range will expand  soon with more Dornoch distillery bottling. Next to it is located their bottling and packaging hall, in a rather bustling and compact environment. They are currently probing the interest of whisky fans to help them financing their new distillery (if you are interested, you can complete this form). They have submitted the planning permission. This second distillery will be larger and will carry a different name.

Inside the warhouse-storehouse of the Thompson Bros

During my brief visit, I could taste a very Dornoch single cask for Taiwan, matured in an ex-peated cask. A very good oily whisky, with lots of character and depth, slightly dirty in style (in a positive manner) with a nice light maritime lingering peat smoke. The peat influence is light but gives a nice additional complexity to the whisky.  Discussing with Simon, there might some lightly peated produced in the futures. Let's wait and see.

 Although I checked their website prior to my visit, I failed to see that (https://www.thompsonbrosdistillers.com/) they were also selling samples of various whiskies, not only bottled under the label, including rarities at a fair price.

A short but intensive and informative visit at Dornoch.

The Brora distillery shortly before 4 PM.

After a quick soup in the chilling restaurant at the Royal Marine Hotel, I moved to the Clynelish and Brora distilleries. After a visit to the shop, where I discovered several Caol Ila and Lagavulin distillery exclusive bottlings, and taking some additional outdoor photographs for the next edition of my book, it was time for the event to start, with the tasting an unpeated new make, followed by a medium peated new make (circa 20 ppm in the barley and 4 ppm in the distillate), I could finally taste my first Brora single malt distilled in the renovated distillery. The unpeated distillate was very pleasant and floral, with nice flavours of freshly pressed raspberries, while the peated one had a nice oily, waxy and dry peat smoke, as well as some farmy flavours. The waxy character in the single malt was well present, as well as oily and fruity flavours. Curious to taste older version of this mal, but the future looks promising.  After some shortbreads and an introduction to the history of the distillery  by Andy Flatt, the Home Brand Ambassador, we visited the distillery, followed by a stop at the warehouse 2, where the first casks of the Brora from 2021 were laying down. While looking at the casks, we were served with the Brora 1977 Distillery exclusive, a lovely peated, matured, mellow and very fruity single malt, with some peach, beeswax, light mineral flavours and some cranberries.  In the old paint shop, we starting tasting the Brora Triptych 1972, 1977 and 1982, showing the different “ages” of the distillery (heavy peat and farmy period, peat age and finally the waxy-citrusy style). All the whiskies were excellent. At first, I was slightly disappointed by the 1982, but after a first sip of all three, then I moved back to it, It seemed to have evolved, by getting more complex and elegant. All the triptych were bottled from a vatting of 4 ex-bourbon casks. The 1977 was surprisingly peaty and fruity, more than the distillery exclusive, at the cost of maybe less subtle flavours.

My first Brora single malt from the new distillery

 

It was time for the dinner, during which we could taste our final Brora, the 1980 from the Prima and Ultima range.
After more than 5 hours spent at the distillery with Andy and a few guests, it was time to drive back to the hotel for a good night of sleep.

The next day, the sky cleared out and a beautiful sunrise accompanied from Brora to Inverness. The Autumn/winter lights gives a nice a colour to this rugged part of Scotland.

On the way to the airport, I made a stop at Strathisla distillery. Unfortunately, the excellent 10 YO Distillery exclusive was sold out and replaced by a 11 YO from an ex-bourbon cask. The 18 YO Distillery exclusive was a lovely rich, floral, spicy Strathisla, on red fruits, dried fruits, some fudge and cinnamon. Very good. The 21 YO was bottled at cask strength from a 2nd fill sherry cask, with a light sherry influence, mainly on toffee and fudge, with some tannins and a light astringency on the finish.

At Aberdeen airport, the selection of whiskies is impressive, although I missed the presence of some Airport exclusives. The only one I could see was a Chieftains 11 YO, with no indication on the provenance of the whisky.

At Heathrow, Bowmore has opened a new shop like Macallan, but I could see only the new “cask finish” range, with a mixture of ex-sherrry and pinot noirs finish at low ABV, and some older expression in ex-Port or Wine casks. I tasted some of these new “cask finish” range at the Whisky Live Paris, which left me ”unimpressed”. At world of whisky, I could not any Diageo Special Releases and the choice was limited mainly to entry level whiskies..

Slainte,
Patrick 06 Dec 2026