Royal Brackla Archives - More Drams, Less Drama

As I had the chance to do many times before, I participated in a Tweet Tasting organized as usual by Steve Rush from The Whisky Wire on Wednesday the 23rd of September. This time, it was not a distillery, but a “new” indy… No, not Indiana Jones. As I was saying, this time it was not a distillery, but a quite new Independent Bottler called The Whisky Cellar. We received a really nice package with five samples, a notebook and a beautiful pen made with oak from a cask stave by Andrew from miawoodcrafts. By the way, if you didn’t know what he does, go check him out, what he makes is brilliant. I do already have a pen made from a Glenfarclas stave and I love it. But let’s get back on track and talk about today’s subject: The Whisky Cellar Tweet Tasting. And let’s start by having a chat with Keith Bonnington to know more about The Whisky Cellar!

Behind the seventh window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden the first batch of Royal Brackla from Boutique-y: a Royal Brackla 12 year-old batch 1, bottled at 47.9% abv (like yesterday’s Auchroisk or the Teaninich from a few days ago) by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Brackla became in 1833 the first distillery to obtain a Royal Warrant, from King William IV, and thus changed its name to Royal Brackla. Only three distilleries bear the name “Royal”: Royal Brackla, Royal Lochnagar and the now demolished Glenury Royal. Royal Brackla is located in the Speyside region but is listed officially as being in the Highlands, and is one of the five distilleries owned by Dewar’s (the others being Aberfeldy, Aultmore, Craigellachie and The Deveron). Royal Brackla was used solely to produce single malt for blends for a long time before a marketing manager, Stephen Marshall, helped by Master Blender Stephanie Macleod, succeeded in convincing the management to release a range of single malts, and since 2015 there is an official range consisting of a 12, a 16 and a 21yo. Royal Brackla has a medium capacity of production at about 4.1 million litres of pure alcohol per year.