LOST DISTILLERIES REOPEN AS WHISKY MARKET EXPANDS
Over the last few decades whisky has prospered. This is especially true of single malt, which has transformed from a virtually unknown category into the Scotch industry’s golden goose. Ironically, certain popular malt whisky brands, now well-known and integral parts of whisky’s fabric, are also a reminder of darker times. Port Ellen, Rosebank and Brora are first and foremost. The likes of St Magdalene, Convalmore, Banff, and Glen Mhor are slightly lesser known, but still highly regarded. Even Benromach and Knockdhu, generally not mentioned because they have since reopened, were part of a momentous historic occasion four decades ago – one that reverberated across the whisky industry.
Trouble had been brewing for several years: the rise of oil prices, a global economic downturn, and a generation turning away from brown spirits. The response from the industry wasn’t swift enough. Production initially continued while sales dwindled, until things came to a grinding halt. On 17 February 1983, the headline on the front page of the Aberdeen Press and Journal read: “Scotch on rocks!” The newspaper reported on the latest body blow dealt to an “already crippled” Scotch whisky industry: Distillers Company Ltd (DCL, now Diageo) had decided to axe 530 jobs in Scotland. It had also shut down 11 malt distilleries and one grain distillery, Carsebridge.
These weren’t the first distilleries lost during the turbulent 1970s and 1980s, and they wouldn’t be the last, either (Rosebank, for example, closed a decade later), but DCL’s course correction was the most substantial and noteworthy signal of an ailing industry. Of course, the rationale was simple. There was a glut! DCL decided that all three distilleries were surplus to requirements and closed them – after all, Caol Ila produced whisky similar to Port Ellen, Clynelish produced enough whisky without the assistance of Brora (which was right next door), and Glenkinchie fulfilled the company’s needs for the light Lowland whisky that Rosebank had become well known for.The closures impacted their communities hugely, but not many whisky drinkers would have been too distressed at first. Nobody was drinking Port Ellen or Brora, but rather Johnnie Walker or White Horse, and with Caol Ila and Lagavulin still producing, those blended whisky brands weren’t in danger of becoming unavailable any time soon. It wasn’t until later that people would take notice of the silent distilleries’ legacies and the whiskies they had left behind.
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Bottlings from silent distilleries brought a genuine rarity to the market. Scarcity and collectability weren’t fully understood before the turn of the 21st century. As a category, single malt was still in its infancy and sales were only a few per cent of the global whisky market. But now, here was something truly rare and unique.
It was quite transformational in the way people thought about collectability, say whisky scholars and industry veterans. A former global marketing director for malts at Diageo was closely involved with the company’s Rare Malts Selection and its successor, the Special Releases programme, which is still released annually. First launched in 1995, the Rare Malts included some of Diageo’s finest stock. Closed distilleries made up a big chunk of the bottlings: Glenury Royal, Millburn, Rosebank, Port Ellen, Glenlochy, Glen Mhor, and many others. It added a critical, and until then missing element in the collectability of single malts.
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The bottlings of these closed distilleries, which other companies started doing as well, changed or was the stimulus for consumers thinking about collecting, and it was a stimulus for the secondary market… It brought in speculators too, for better or worse. When the Special Releases were introduced in 2001, Diageo-owned distilleries with shops initially received generous allocations. It is also worth mentioning that in the 1980s a similar fate befell many distilleries, which are now considered an integral part of the single malt Scotch whisky market, including Ardbeg, Bunnahabhain, Glenglassaugh or even Springbank.
BRORA DISTILLERY REOPENED ON 21 MAY 2021
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| BRORA IN ITS OLDER AVATAR |
On 21st May 2021, the Brora Distillery opened its gates after more than thirty-eight years of closure. Set in the rolling hillsides of Sutherland, northeast Scotland, its picturesque courtyards and grey brick, slate-roofed buildings will now see renewed whisky making.
Following a three-year restoration programme, production resumed under the watchful eye of the Master Distiller, Stewart Bowman. Staff filled the first casks of 2021 with new make spirit from the stills. Thus, a new era has begun as the casks’ contents mature to become premium Brora whisky.
The closure spanned four decades, during which stocks of the brand’s bottled and cask whiskies appreciated significantly. Some of Brora’s legendary and much sought-after single malt scotches have achieved cult status among connoisseurs, collectors and investors alike.
As he officially reopened the imposing doors of the distillery, Bowman spoke about his father, the distillery’s last exciseman. In 1983, the latter closed off the then distillery ledger with an entry referring to the beginning of a silent season for an undetermined period.
Now, the old hands must feel a sense of pride. Inside, even the refurbished spirit stills are precise copies of the original installations. The owners, holding company Diageo plc, have replicated the former production processes and conditions wherever possible.
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| BRORA TODAY |
GUIDED VISITS
According to their website, guided tours for visitors commenced from July 2021. As one would expect of this fine establishment, the experience includes whisky tastings and either a light or a substantial lunch. Currently, prices are £300 to £600 per person.
Founded in 1819 by the Marquis of Stafford, the reawakened 202-year-old distillery looks likely to continue releasing select, much-celebrated vintages. For now, a unique Brora Triptych commemorates the reopening with three different bottling runs of scarce, well-aged single malts from decades-old casks.
Brora Triptych
Each of the three superb bottlings represents a distinct era of the distillery. Triptych Elusive Legacy is 48 years old, the oldest single malt scotch ever released by Brora. Triptych Age of Peat is 43 years old, in the classic late 1970s heavily smoked style. It contains 48.6 per cent ABV. The third and youngest bottling is Timeless Original, from casks filled in 1982 and almost as potent.
The unique ash wood presentation cases contain three precious half-litre crystal decanters with Glencairn stoppers, filled with luxury scotch, as well as a personal invitation from Mr Bowman to visit the distillery. While the press release does not disclose how many of these trio sets will be available, it puts the price at £30,000 for UK purchasers.
Bowman described his deep affection for Brora in a press interview, narrating how it runs through his history. The Scot grew up in the village, with a view of the distillery’s bell tower visible from the kitchen window of the family home. Unsurprisingly, he speaks of feeling honoured to introduce visitors, share his experience and tell one or two of his father’s stories.
In 2019, during Brora’s period of dormancy, Diageo released a 40-year-old 200th Anniversary Quintessential scotch. This golden, smoky Highland liquor boasted rich flavours of figs and ripe fruit. The bottling ran to 1,819 units which sold for around £4,500 apiece.
ROSEBANK DISTILLERY TO REOPEN ON 07 JUNE 2024
After a 30-year absence and a a four-year restoration
project, Rosebank Distillery will reopen to the public this summer – officially
on Friday 7 June.
Rosebank Distillery was held in extremely high regard and it was a huge shame that it closed when it was distilling some of the best spirit for the Scotch whisky industry. Now out of its 30-year slumber, the newly-restored site mixes modern updates with old features retained from its original run, which honour the distillery’s heritage.
For starters, the distillery’s Victorian red brickwork faces the Forth and Clyde canal, while a new glass-fronted stillroom has been installed from the front of the building. Here, visitors will see exact copies of the original stills, replicated using blueprints salvaged from the Rosebank archives.
THE THEFT OF THE ORIGINAL ROSEBANK STILLS
Against a beautiful, cloudless sky, Rosebank’s three new pot stills were lifted one by one from a flatbed trailer to dangle high above the distillery, the copper gleaming in the late February sunshine. Each was then carefully lowered through a hole in the roof and positioned in the new stillroom. It was memorable sight, but it begs the question – whatever happened to the original stills?
When the old Rosebank distillery closed on June 30th 1993, the stills went cold, the doors shut and the workers were laid off. The whole place must have felt dead, especially from the outside as signs of decay – missing tiles, broken windows, weeds sprouting from gutters … gradually took hold.
Yet inside, even after the distillery had been sold to British Waterways in 2002, the stills remained as though waiting for some miracle that would fire them back to life. Such hopes had all but faded when Scott Jackson, a diehard fan of Rosebank whisky, was allowed in one night to pay his respects and raise a dram to ‘the old lady’ in the stillroom.
Some years later, just after Christmas 2008, a very different set of visitors arrived. They came at night by lorry not on some whisky pilgrimage, but to steal the copper. When a Detective Inspector of Falkirk CID broke the story of the theft on January 21st 2009, there was disbelief. Had the thieves really walked out with the stills glinting in the moonlight? The Falkirk Herland wondered if the gang had been planning to cash in on Robert Burns’ 250th anniversary that weekend, before remembering it takes three years to make whisky.
The police claimed “a significant amount of planning would have been involved in order to get into the building, and then set about removing the metal equipment over a period of some weeks.” There was supposedly security on site, but it was hardly Ocean’s Eleven. Those involved in the ‘great Falkirk copper heist’ simply hacked a few gaping holes in the stills before loading up their lorry and heading for one of the less reputable scrap merchants, one imagines. So far, no one has been charged.
With the remains of three pot stills damaged beyond repair, it was surely now Rosebank R.I.P. With its heart ripped out, no one could have dreamt it could somehow survive. But here we are, twelve years on, with the distillery nearly rebuilt, a brand-new set of stills faithfully copied from the original designs, and with Rosebank about to make whisky again.
Being small, Rosebank was one of the more expensive whiskies to produce, but many felt that there was some combination with others facets that gave reason to close a distillery. Its reopening will be a proud moment for its hometown of Falkirk, for the industry and for whisky lovers everywhere. The 108ft chimney stack has also been repaired and continues to ‘dominate’ Falkirk’s skyline.The original mill, said to be around 103 years old, has been kept and will be used in the distillery’s whisky production, just as it was three decades ago. Furthermore, a new dunnage style warehouse has been built from the bricks of its historic counterpart, which now showcases casks of the original Rosebank next to the first casks of the new Rosebank spirit.
When the distillery reopens, guests will have access to ‘world-class’ visitor experiences, including three tours: Rosebank Reawakening, Rosebank Rekindled and Rosebank Revered. The guided tours will take guests through spaces such as the six tasting rooms, the original mill and the pot stills where the spirit is triple-distilled and condensed in traditional wooden worm tubs. Two of the tours will also offer bespoke tutored tasting of ‘extremely rare and old’ Rosebank whisky, and each one will finish up at the new distillery shop where exclusive expressions are available for purchase.
GLEN KEITH REOPENING IN 2013
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| THE GLEN KEITH DISTILLERY |
With sales of Chivas Regal rising throughout the 1950s, Samuel Bronfman, owner of Canadian Seagram’s, felt that he needed another distillery to supply juice for his blends – not just Chivas but Passport and 100 Pipers. He picked the site of a former meal mill in Keith, directly behind his existing Strathisla plant. As well as providing fillings for blends, Glen Keith became the Seagram’s experimental plant and still houses the Chivas Brothers lab.
It ran triple-distilled malt from the word go and alternated it with double distilled until the 1980s, ran trials with a wheat mash, was the first distillery to use gas-fired direct heating (all its stills are now steam-driven) and in its time also produced heavy peated variants [Glenisla] one made with peat smoke being passed through water which was then concentrated and the other in the normal manner. There were also trials with different yeast types. The fact that the stills were different shapes and sizes helped in these innovative trials.
Glen Keith reopened under new owner Pernod Ricard on
June 14, 2013 after a complete refit which saw a new mash tun and washbacks being
installed. Its six stills are the original. Chivas Brothers, the whisky and gin
arm of Pernod Ricard and owner of Glen Keith, produces six million litres of
spirit a year from the distillery. Most of the Glen Keith spirit will be used
in blended whiskies destined for export, such as Diageo's Johnnie Walker and
Chivas Brothers' Ballantine's, among others. Of course, there will be single
malts as well, favoured by cognoscenti that make up the vast majority of the
world whisky market.
Chivas Brothers was delighted to see this distillery re-opened and producing spirit once again. The fact that it reopened a silent distillery, and was soon to build a brand-new distillery in the region, shows just how strong the demand for their luxury Scotch whiskies is. With an extensive inventory of more than six million casks, and this new increased distilling capacity, they are well placed to continue to meet this demand, safeguarding the future of their award-winning brands for decades to come. The sweet, fruity spirit produced at Glen Keith, will be aged in oak casks and used in the Chivas Regal and Royal Salute blends, as in the past.
Prior to re-opening, the distillery underwent a major upgrade, resulting in a 50% greater malt distillation capacity. Work included the installation of new malt storage facilities, and a new mash-house and tun-room, which accommodates the new mash tun along with six additional washbacks, bringing the total to 15. The distillery’s existing six stills were also refurbished.
It was also the first Scottish distillery to be heated by gas. Other brandnames are Glenisla, Glenkeith or Glen Keith-Glenlivet.
