Located on Islay’s western shores, Bruichladdich (pronounced ‘Brook-Laddie’, the Gaelic term for ‘raised beach’) was established in 1881 by Robert and William Harvey. Unlike other Islay distilleries with their heavily peated taste, Bruichladdich has earned a reputation as being a more sophisticated single malt with a fantastic range of flavors: superb vanilla sweetness, a sprinkle of sea air and a hint of peat fires all combine to give complexity to the spirit, making it the most popular single malt among the islanders. Can there be a better endorsement?
The distillery was closed in 1994 and lay sad and silent until a group of committed single malt lovers, under the leadership of Mark Reynier, purchased it in December 2000. They were joined by renowned Jim McEwan, himself an islander and twice winner of the Distiller of the Year title. Jim has built a team of genuine, passionate people and together they have restored this classic beauty to its former glory. Following extensive renovation of the original Victorian equipment, the first single malt ran into the Spirit Safe at 8:25 a.m. on the 29th of May 2001, a day of joy and pride shared by all of the 3,400 islanders. A day of history! The old lady dances again … Bruichladdich is back.
Today, Bruichladdich is operated and managed on-site, producing Scotland’s purest single malt whisky from an unlikely marriage of manual 19th century equipment, pre-industrial techniques, wine trade influences and state-of-the-art telecommunications. The whisky is distilled from 100% Scottish barley from different terroirs and peating levels. Matured beside the Atlantic, the marine-influenced whisky is naturally bottled in Islay’s only bottling hall—uniquely from Islay spring water from Gneiss (the oldest rocks in the whisky world) without the industrial processes of chill-filtration or artificial coloring.