Qualla: Clynelish Distillery

Clynelish Distillery: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit sylvia duckworth, CC BY-SA 2.0. About ninety-five percent of what Clynelish makes never appears in a bottle of Clynelish. The pale, waxy spirit produced in this large 1960s distillery on the Sutherland coast goes mostly into Johnnie Walker - the world's best-selling Scotch whisky blend - where it provides the distinctive honeyed body of Gold Label Reserve. The independent bottlings and the official 14-year-old release are afterthoughts of a sort. Clynelish exists to feed something larger than itself.

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Image: sylvia duckworth | CC BY-SA 2.0

Clynelish Distillery: Two Distilleries, One Site

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bill Henderson, CC BY-SA 2.0. The original Clynelish distillery was built in 1819, next door to where the present distillery now stands. When it first started distilling in the years 1820 to 1822, Clynelish produced around 12,000 gallons per year - roughly 54,000 litres. Through the nineteenth century the dis...

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Image: Bill Henderson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Clynelish Distillery: Built for the Boom

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Colin Kinnear, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the 1960s, more and more of Clynelish's spirit was disappearing into blends. The decade was a boom for Scotch - people were buying more luxury goods generally, including cars and whisky. The owners needed more capacity than the cramped old still-house could give them, so they ...

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Image: Colin Kinnear | CC BY-SA 2.0

Clynelish Distillery: The Waxy Style

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit sylvia duckworth, CC BY-SA 2.0. Modern Clynelish is famous in the blending world for a particular waxy, oily texture that coats the glass and lingers on the palate - a quality that no other distillery quite replicates. Much of the waxy character is attributed to a curious accident of plant operation: certain re...

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Image: sylvia duckworth | CC BY-SA 2.0

Clynelish Distillery: Brora Reborn

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stanley Howe, CC BY-SA 2.0. Brora's PPM levels - phenol parts per million, which describe how much peat character the malt carries - started at around 30 to 35 PPM, on a level with Caol Ila (30-35 PPM) and slightly below Lagavulin (35-40 PPM). Brora went into the blends for one year while Caol Ila was close...

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Image: Stanley Howe | CC BY-SA 2.0