Bruichladdich distillery’s origins date back to 1881 when the Harvey brothers: William, John and Robert oversaw the construction of the site. The Harveys were a dynastic whisky family that had seen successes with distilleries in Glasgow.
Unlike other Islay distilleries at the time the brothers ensured that their facilities would be state of the art. The stills themselves produced an extremely high quality spirit due to their unusual height and narrow necks.
The distillery changed ownership a number of times over the years, but its modern iconic status has its roots in 2000. Led by independent bottler Mark Reynier a group of investors purchased the distillery and began to implement a number of reforms. Firstly the entire distillery was disassembled and then meticulously rebuilt in the exact same way, with all of the Victorian stills remaining.
To this day the only computers used are for clerical tasks, with the actual distilling process instead being done traditionally by trained staff.
The entirety of the distillery’s production goes towards single malts with three expressions currently available. The titular Bruichladdich is the unpeated release, meanwhile Port Charlotte is strongly peated and the Octomore stands as ‘the most heavily peated single malt in the world’.
Bruichladdich distillery was purchased by French drinks giant Rémy Cointreau in 2012 for £58 million. Soon after major construction works began on new warehouses and doubling production.
At the time of writing Bruichladdich distillery is the largest private employer on the island of Islay.
