OOOH! Brora!

That’s what I thought when I opened a package from the German-Dutch booze exchange that has been going on between me and Frank Lieck.

Enough has been said about Brora, but this is a fairly young one. At 26 years old, it cannot be a bottling from after 2010. The plant closed in 1983 after all. A single cask from a sherry butt, so we’re bound for a treat, I’d say!

Brora 1983 from Whisky Depot

Sniff:
It takes a while for this one to open up. At first I didn’t smell much apart from a gentle smokiness. After ten minutes or so I start getting gentle fruity sherry tones on a background of a peat stoked campfire. The keyword is gentle.

Not as peaty as most other Broras I know, lightly fruity, peach and pineapple. A little bit salty too.

Sip:
Slightly spicy! Quite some properly sherried wood. Nice and spicy with pepper, cigar tobacco. Reasonably complex. Light, peppery and salty. If tasted blind I would have said it was a 1970s Highland Park or so.

Swallow:
The finish has some heat to it as well and lasts for quite a while. Not much smoke is left but there is some heather, honey and dried fruit.

It’s a very nice whisky. See how I said ‘very nice’ and ‘really good’? It ticks all the boxes and is complex enough to be very interesting for quite a while. But, since you know it’s a Brora you expect a bit more. At least I do.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, but it missed that bit of Oomph that I remember Brora for.

It’s still available, miraculously, at Whisky Depot in Germany, for € 160.