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Set on the western shore of the island of Islay, in the bay of Loch Indaal, a short distance from the village of Port Charlotte and from the Bowmore distillery, Bruichladdich is without doubt the most unconventional of Islay's distilleries.
John, Robert and William Harvey founded the distillery in 1881, using the inheritance left by their father, one of Glasgow's greatest distillers, to build the most modern distillery of the day. The venture revealed its distinctly pioneering, forward-looking nature right from the materials used in its construction: an experimental concrete, made with pebbles from the beach, and cavity walls. The Harvey family went on distilling whisky at Bruichladdich until 1929, when the distillery closed for the first time.
In 1938 the distillery was sold to Hatim Attari, Joseph W. Hobbs and Alexander W. Tolmie, who ran it until 1952, when Ross & Coulter Ltd took over. AB Grant then acquired the distillery in 1960, doubling output and bringing Bruichladdich up to around one million litres a year. In 1968 it was Invergordon Distillers that took over the distillery, increasing production in 1975: the stills went from 2 to 4, taking the distillery to one and a half million litres a year. In 1993 Invergordon Distillers was absorbed by Whyte & Mackay, and two years later Bruichladdich was closed.
In 2000 a group of private investors, led by Murray McDavid (an independent bottler), spent almost 8 million euros to buy the distillery along with a stock of 7,000 casks. Jim McEwan (formerly of Bowmore) was appointed master distiller and production director. In 2001, after an extensive programme of restoration work (most of the original Victorian-era equipment was refurbished), the distillery resumed production, and in 2003 it built its own bottling line. Today Bruichladdich's entire output is devoted to creating single malts that are non-chill filtered and free from added colouring; what is more, all the barley used is exclusively Scottish and organic.
Did you know? The distillery produces three different types of single malt: a lightly peated whisky, Bruichladdich; a whisky peated to 40 ppm, Port Charlotte, named in honour of the distillery of the same name that closed in 1929; and one of the most pungent, heavily peated whiskies in the world (over 100 ppm), Octomore, which takes its name from an Islay distillery that closed in 1854.
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