Clynelish
Distillery
Located
on the A9 in the popular holiday town of Brora with commanding
views of the North Sea. Spring water from the Clynemilton burn
is used to produce this fruity, slightly smoky Single Malt Scotch
Whisky.
Built in 1819 on his new farm, Clynelish provided a ready market
for barley grown by the future Duke of Sutherland’s tenants,
cruelly evicted from their crofts inland to make way for sheep
in the notorious Highland Clearances. Life was a virtuous circle.
The local mine provided coal to heat the stills. Spent grains
from the distillery fed local livestock. Their manure improved
the quality of the land… on which the barley was grown…
from which malt whisky was made.
Unusually,
the origins of the name Clynelish itself are infrequently referred
to, but the Gaelic for a green plain or pasture is Cluain, whilst
a Lios or Leas is an enclosure or garden – so we can speculate
that the name Cluain-Lios, duly anglicised as Clyne-Lish, simply
refers to cultivated land, in other words, a farm. And as we’ve
seen, the distillery was indeed built on Clynelish Farm, which
still exists.
The whisky
was highly regarded. Only private customers were supplied; ‘trade
orders’ were refused. In 1886 the early whisky tourist,
Alfred Barnard, wrote that this was ‘always the highest
priced of any Scotch whisky’ whilst it was sold around
the beginning of the twentieth century as ‘The Finest
Highland Malt Whisky’. Professor Saintsbury, whose practice
was to keep a ‘living cask’ of the finest malt whiskies,
spoke highly of ‘Clyne Lish’ in his 1920 classic,
‘Notes On A Cellar Book’, commenting ‘A friend
of mine from Oxford days… held some mixed Clyne Lish and
Glenlivet of mine to be the best whisky he had ever drunk.’
The barley
that makes Clynelish™ is still malted in the Northern
Highlands and water is still piped down from the Clynemilton
Burn to the distillery. They go to make a cool, coastal single
malt whisky, aged in oak casks for at least fourteen years.
The original
distillery was closed for a short time but reopened as Brora
Distillery from April 1969 until May 1983. It produced a heavily
peated whisky for blending with a completely different character,
leaving the new Clynelish to carry on the tradition.
The new
Clynelish is consequently one of the youngest distilleries on
the malt map, with production starting in 1967. It is three
times the size of the original distillery, and has retained
the traditional still and water supply to guarantee the authentic
character of the malt.
Distillery Manager: Mark Lochhead
Opening Times
January to Easter:
By appointment
Easter
to September:
Mon - Fri: 10am - 5pm
October:
Mon - Fri: 11am - 4pm
November
& December:
By appointment
Closed
between Christmas & New Year.
Last
Tour:
1 hour before above closing times.
Contact
Us
Clynelish Distillery,
Brora, Sutherland
Email the Clynelish
Distillery
Tel:
+44 (0) 1408 623000 Fax: +44 (0) 1408 623004
More Clynelish
Information...
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