Royal Brackla 1983-1999 - Scotts Selection

Royal Brackla is a large but still relatively obscure old Highland distillery and has been owned by Bacardi since 1998 when the latter bought the Dewar’s group from Diageo. Brackla had been somewhat lost in Diageo’s portfolio, but under Bacardi, the distillery was revitalized and a new range of official bottlings finally appeared in 2015. The distillery’s Royal Warrant was bestowed by King William IV in 1835, the first to be awarded to a Scotch whisky distillery.

Independent bottlings of Royal Brackla are more common nowadays than they used to be, but are generally relatively young casks, although more respectably aged releases have appeared from Gordon & MacPhail and the SMWS. The distillery itself also now bottles occasional long-aged limited editions as the Exceptional Casks series.

Robert Scott & Co. was an independent bottler set up in 1996 as a subsidiary of Speyside Distillers to launch Scott’s Selection, a range of cask strength whiskies bottled from single casks selected by Robert Scott, a former distillery manager of Bladnoch and retired Master Distiller of Speyside distillery.

Scott’s Selection whiskies proved extremely popular in the early 2000s, with a string of outstanding bottlings including 1970s vintages from Longmorn and Macallan and a famous Lochside 1964 single blend. Speyside Distillers was sold to Alexander Muir & Son Ltd in 2000; the last Scott’s Selection bottlings appeared in 2012, shortly before the business was sold to Harvey’s of Edinburgh.