Brackla 12 Year Old 2011 (Cask 93900135) Duncan Taylor

About The Brand: Brackla

On the Cawdor Estate, close to Nairn in Scotland, lies the Royal Brackla distillery, a Highland Scotch whiskey distillery. For Bacardi, John Dewar & Sons Ltd runs the distillery. On the grounds of Cawdor Castle, Captain William Fraser of Brackla House erected the Brackla distillery in 1812. King William IV chose Brackla whiskey to be his drink of choice at the royal court. The first whiskey distillery to get a royal warrant from the monarch was Brackla Distillery in 1833. The distilleries Royal Lochnagar, which is still operating, and Glenury Royal, which was demolished, were the other two to hold the name 'Royal.' In 1838, Queen Victoria extended Brackla's royal pardon. The distillery was taken over by William Fraser & Co in 1839, and in 1852 it was transferred from William Fraser to his son Robert Fraser. Robert Fraser sold the distillery to Robert Fraser & Co. in 1878, and the business was reorganized as the Brackla Distillery Co Ltd. in 1879. The business was bought in 1919 by John Mitchel and James Leith of Aberdeen, who later sold it to John Bisset & Co Ltd of Leith in 1926. In 1943, the Distillers Company Ltd. took control of them. The Royal Brackla Distillery was among the distilleries that closed between 1943 and 1945 as a result of Second World War limitations on the use of barley for distillation. In 1940, an airstrip was constructed next to the distillery to serve as a landing area for operational training and air gunnery. Due to extensive remodeling and re-planning, the distillery had to lock its doors once again from 1964 to 1966. Internal heating using steam produced from a coal-fired boiler has replaced the conventional practice of manually burning the stills with coal. Spirit vapour was cooled in 1965 using an underground water source that had been built for an airstrip during World War II. The distillery was enlarged in 1970 with the addition of a second set of stills and the conversion of the coal-fired boiler to an oil-fired one. The older conventional warehouses that were still in operation in 1975 were replaced by new racked warehouses. In 1985, the Royal Brackla Distillery once more shuttered. The whisky casks continued to mature and be used for blending as needed by the owners while still being kept on-site in the warehouses. In 1991, the distillery reopened.