Brora 1982 SMWS 21 Year Old 61.18

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) was founded in 1983 by a group of friends lead by tax accountant Phillip ‘Pip’ Hills as a private members club. The concept behind the society was to source casks from all over Scotland which would then be bottled and made available exclusively to its members. Perhaps the most famous feature of these bottles are the unique codes. Each distillery is represented by a different number and the following digits indicate that particular release. That same year, the SMWS set up its first location in Leith’s Vault buildings in Edinburgh where it still stands today

Distilled in 1982, this was the eighteenth Brora bottling from SMWS. It was bottled in 2003 at 21 years old.

Brora distillery (originally known as Clynelish) was built by the Duke of Sutherland in 1819. Prized by blenders, the distillery found itself in the hands of DCL in 1925 when they acquired shareholders, Ainslie & Heilbron and John Walker & Sons. DCL closed the distillery in 1967 after opening a new, larger Clynelish next-door, but re-opened the first site, now renamed as Brora the following year. Bottlings of the whisky it produced between then and its second closure in 1983 are now increasingly sought after. Official bottlings of Brora did not appear until 1995, long after its closure, but independent bottlings like this were produced from the late 1980s. In 2017 it was announced that Diageo planned to re-open this formerly lost gem, and the revived distillery filled its first casks on 19th May 2021.