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- Brora 40 price drop spotlights the value of our Rare Gems whisky collection [Subscriber-only Content]
Brora 40 price drop spotlights the value of our Rare Gems whisky collection [Subscriber-only Content]
Subscriber-only Content
[Subscriber-only Content]
Brora 40 price drop spotlights the value of our Rare Gems whisky collection
Three highly collectible bottles from ghosts of Scotland’s past and future: Brora, Port Ellen and Littlemill
Occasionally, the team at the Single Malt Shop discovers a rare collector’s item hiding in plain sight. When they do, they like to snap it up and add it to the Rare Gems collection. By definition, this collection comprises hard-to-find bottles that are eagerly sought after and are then offered at competitive prices to collectors and affluent drinkers alike.
Every bottle on the Rare Gems shelves is highly sought after and on wish lists of collectors all over the world. Here are three that we think you might like to discover:
Brora Distillery was a ghost for more than three decades. Permanently closed in 1983 by Diageo, they eventually saw sense and brought this much-loved and deeply rooted Highland distillery back from the dead. It cost the company over £35 million to revive it, but fans attest it was more than worth the price and the wait.
Operating since 1819, this 40-year-old single malt was released from its original stock to mark 200 years since the distillery's opening. Conveniently (for the marketing team, at least), the 12 ex-bourbon hogsheads in which it was matured also produced 1,819 bottles, matching the year of its release.
This is a peated single malt that celebrates everything that the distillery represented when it closed. The whisky house had been producing heavily peated malt from 1969 to 1973 and made a shift in its final decade to return to a lighter peated style, appealing to global trends.
This whisky was distilled in 1978, bottled at 49.2% in 2019 and launched in advance of the distillery’s planned reopening a year later. Brora Distillery was lost to a crumbling whisky industry in the 1980s but awoke to a globally renewed whisky landscape, now buoyant and in demand. Brora 40 has not only managed to hold its value but also increase at an exponential rate, encapsulating the story of the peaks and troughs of the entire Scottish whisky industry within its fragile glass casing.
Similarly to Brora, Port Ellen on Islay fell to the Diageo axe in the 1980s. When the company took ownership of the Port Ellen Distillery, it decided to shut it down, destroying some of its buildings and stills in the process. It was a curious move that the multinational eventually returned to, putting this now infamous production house on a long and winding road back to recovery. A massive rebuild battled against economic challenges and global Covid shutdowns to finally emerge in 2024, renewed and ready to join its neighbours on the world’s most famous whisky island.
In the interim, the Port Ellen brand grew, constantly echoing the folly of knocking down the buildings and closing the distillery in the first place. This bottle was distilled in 1982, the last year of production. A year later, the plug was pulled, making this one of the rarest bottles from the Islay house.
It was released by independent bottler Silver Seal, based out of Glasgow, and is one of only 360 bottles in its Missing series. At 20 years old, it’s a hugely collectible vintage, released in 2003. The distillery is back up and running, but it will be another 10 years before we witness a bottling of any great substance. In the meantime, the remaining original stock will continue to grow in value – this bottle included. Even after that point, simply being from the original stock will ensure the Manager’s Reserve increases its value long into the future.
When Littlemill closed in 1994, the dismantling of this historic cornerstone of Scottish distilling ensured that there would be no coming back. The building was stripped of assets and subsequently destroyed by fire, making this Lowland operation on the banks of the River Clyde one of the quietest silent distilleries there is. Stock remains, however, and by the rules of rarity and excellence in distilling, its value rises every year. The operation is now owned by the Loch Lomond Group, which also owns Glen Scotia and the Loch Lomond distillery. A small series of expressions continues to emerge annually from Littlemill stock, in tiny batches of a few hundred bottles.
The prices match Littlemill’s exclusivity, while the whisky in each bottle more than equals the high standards it has set itself. The bottles featured here represent fragments of the past and future of Scottish distilling. Each is a slice of history, and owning one is a guarantee of value, but they also set a benchmark for future standards of Scottish distilling – they simply cannot be replaced.
Littlemill 25-year-old is part of the brand’s Private Cellar Edition. Bottled in 2015, it represents the final years of the working distillery, having been laid down in the very late 1980s or early 1990s, some four years before the distillery closed. It’s one of 1,500 bottles released, and its value today is undoubtedly linked to its origins as well as the quality of the whisky. After maturing in a combination of oak casks, it was married in an Oloroso sherry cask and comes with a miniature 5cl bottle, allowing you to sample this unique whisky. Bottled at 50.4%.