Braeval Distillery

Braeval is one of many distilleries built in the late 20th century to produce spirits for the booming scotch market. Founded in 1973 on a mountain ridge at Chapeltown in the heart of Speyside, Braeval is the highest distillery in Scotland at 350m in altitude. Built by Chivas Brothers, Braeval supplied spirit for blends such as their Chivas Regal brand. It draws its water from the Pitilie Burn, a water source shared with Aberfeldy highland distillery.

In its early years Braeval underwent rapid expansion, increasing the number of stills in operation from three to five in 1975. Three years later yet another still was added to the distillery. The two wash stills each have a capacity of 22,000 litres, and they are joined by four smaller spirit stills which can hold 11,000 litres each. Along with the six stills Braeval operates a 9 ton stainless steel mash tun and 13 stainless steel washbacks.

Capable of 26 mashes a week, the distillery has the capacity to produce 4.2 million litres of spirits a year. The modern origins of Braeval work in its favour as despite this high capacity, the entire operation can be run by a single person.

In 2001 Braeval came under the umbrella of French parent company Pernod Ricard when they bought Chivas Brothers, only to be mothballed the next year. Braeval stayed shut until 2008 when it recommenced production in the mid-summer.

As single malt whiskies have seen their own surge in popularity in recent years, Chivas Brothers have capitalised on this with the release of a range of single malts. Many distilleries that mainly produce whisky for blends are happy to have just one single malt bottling on the market. However, Braeval has instead opted to release three bottlings aged 25, 27, and 30 years old. Of the three the 30 year old is bottled at Cask Strength of 50.3%. These were first released as Travel Exclusives in 2019 but are being made widely available in 2020. Before this range, a 16 year old single cask was released in 2017 as the first official single malt bottling to come from the distillery. A number of independent bottlings have also been released prior to this.