Each year I am brought out to The Feathers Pub, Toronto for my birthday. Some years multiple times. This year, just once, and that’s okay by me. Too much of a good thing and that.

When selecting a Highland, I have to say that, assuming money is not a concern, my typical question is: What Brora do they have?

Here again we see a distillery that is being reopened, and we ask the same question: Without the people who were there before, will it be the same?

Brora was popularized after it was closed. It was used as a secondary place to make peated whisky for blenders. It’s the original Clynelish, before Clynelish was Clynelish.

However the sheer amount of barrels that were allowed to sit about for long periods of times and picked about means that we ended up with yearly whiskies from Brora that have now hit legendary…