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01 April 1998
Whisky fit for a King
By
Gavin Smith
Inevitably, the enthusiast also yearns for more knowledge about the distilleries he or she cannot visit, just as the mysterious party guest standing on the edge of conversations always seems potentially more interesting than the garrulous companions intent on sharing with you their opinions on Vauxhall Vectras or the latest Robert Carlyle movie. UDV's Royal Brackla distillery near Nairn is one of those elusive party guests one rarely gets to chat to, which is a pity, as the plant has an interesting history and produces a very decent, if somewhat historically elusive, dram. Brackla is situated off the B9090, some six miles south of Nairn and the Moray Firth.
As Dundee's finest writer of bad verse, William McGonagall, so usefully pointed out in the days before tourist boards had been invented and the AA Road Atlas could be bought so cheaply, "The town of Nairn is worth a visit, I do confess, And it's only about fIfteen miles from Inverness ..." That indefatigable chronicler of Victorian distilleries, Alfred Barnard, thought Nairn 'the Brighton of the North'. Brackla is usually classifIed as a 'Northern Highland' malt and that is how the Society lists it. However it is sometimes considered to be a very peripheral Speysider, depending on which expert wrote the distillery guide one is reading at the time.
Royal Brackla distillery is just three quarters of a mile from Cawdor Castle, where according to Shakespeare, Macbeth murdered King Duncan, and the castle now plays host to some 120,000 tourists per year. Brackla is also within a few miles of other major tourist attractions, such as Fort George and Culloden Moor. UDV choose to direct potential distillery visitors in the area to Glen Ord, north of Inverness, and makes no capital out of Brackla's 'Royal' prefIx. Along with the high-profIle UDV Lochnagar plant near Balmoral Castle on Deeside, Brackla is the only operational distillery in Scotland entitled to use the word 'Royal' in its title.
For devotees of whisky trivia, there was only ever one other - Glenury Royal in Stonehaven. Trivia buffs may also like to note that Royal Brackla was one of the malts used by Andrew Usher in creating the very fust blended whiskies around 1860. Brackla was built in 1812 on the site of a 'malt brewhouse' by Captain William Fraser of Brackla House, and because of the fIerce local competition from illicit distillers, he worked hard to establish his new whisky in the Lowlands and in England. He is said to have complained that although he was surrounded by whisky-drinkers, he could not even sell one hundred gallons a year close to home! The Cawdor Burn - which still supplies the distillery with process water was a major centre for illegal whiskymaking, as Barnard noted on his visit to Royal Brackla.
Fraser's policy clearly paid dividends, as by 1835 the Brackla make was suffIciently prestigious for him to become the first whisky distiller to be granted a Royal Warrant by King William IV. The Morning Chronicle newspaper of 20th January 1835 carried the following advertisement: 'Brackla or The King's Own Whisky - His Majesty having been pleased to distinguish 'this by his Royal Command to supply his establishment' has placed this whisky first on the list of British Spirits, and when known should be in truth termed 'The Divine Drink' only to be had of the Importers, Graham & Co., New Road, facing the Mary-la-bone Workhouse.'
From the mid 1840s until the turn of the century, Andrew Usher & Co. acted as agents for Royal Brackla, and the Ushers were also partners in the distillery. In 1890 Lord Cawdor granted a lease of the distillery to the partners of Robert Fraser & Co., and Brackla was rebuilt the same year. In 1898 Robert Fraser & Co. was succeeded by The Brackla Distillery Co. Ltd, which in turn made over its rights in the lease to Aberdeen-basedJohn Mitchell and James Leith.
A further change of ownership took place in 1926 when these rights passed to John Bisset & Co. Ltd. In 1943 this company sold Brackla to Scottish Malt Distillers Ltd., DCL's malt distilling subsidiary, which was subsequently absorbed into United Distillers. In 1965, DCL rebuilt Brackla, adding new maltings, and in 1970 the number of stills was doubled from two to four. None of this, however, prevented Brackla from becoming a victim of DCL's major cutbacks during the 1980s. It was one of ten distilleries that fell silent m March 1985, following the closure of eleven plants two years previously.
Brackla was one of the fortunate few distilleries on United Distillers' hit-list to re-open, however, with production resuming 1991. Most of the make of Brackla had always gone into DCL blends, with only the occasional independent bottling of single malt surfacing from time to time. Brackla's manager is Chris Anderson, a native of Islay, and formerly at Lagavulin and Caol Ila distilleries on his home island. He points out that in 1993 United Distillers made Royal Brackla available as a ten year old single in its 'Flora and Fauna' series, and also now market an unaged single which sells as an economy priced malt.
Anderson hazards a guess that 'probably about one percent of the 2.6m litres of alcohol we produce annually is sold as a single malt'. Glenturret may have the legend of its famous mousing cat, Towser, but Brackla is surely the only distillery in Scotland to possess its own colony of bees and a quirky story to accompany it. Anderson tells how during the demolition of a disused warehouse in November 1994, a hive of wild bees was discovered in a wall. The hive was some fifteen feet across, and experts considered it to be at least seventy years old. The wall was left intact until the following spring, when the bees were temporarily housed in Elgin, before being returned to the distillery and installed in purpose-built hives.
Chris Anderson is willing to arrange distillery tours for special-interest groups, so perhaps at least one of those mystery party guests should be approached after all. Gavin Smith is a freelance writer who specialises in whisky and horse-racing. He lives in the Borders. Thanks to the UDV Archive for their assistance.
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