Braeval Distillery — Speyside Single Malt Whisky

Braeval Distillery is a Scotch whisky distillery located near Chapeltown, in the Braes of Glenlivet, Speyside, Scotland. It was founded in 1973 and is currently owned by Chivas Brothers, a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard. Standing at roughly 350 metres above sea level, it is widely cited as the highest-altitude distillery in Scotland.

History

Braeval was built in 1973 by Chivas Brothers under the name Braes of Glenlivet, sited on a remote mountain ridge in an area historically notorious for illicit whisky stills in the 18th and 19th centuries — the first proper road into "the Braes" was not laid until the 1960s. It was designed as one of the first wholly automated Scotch distilleries, with its production equipment housed in a single open-plan building, and was built primarily to supply malt whisky for blends such as Chivas Regal and 100 Pipers.

In 1995 the distillery was renamed Braeval to avoid ongoing confusion with its far more famous neighbour, The Glenlivet. Ownership passed to Pernod Ricard in 2001 when the French drinks group acquired Chivas Brothers from Seagram. The new owner mothballed Braeval the following year, and it remained silent from October 2002 until it was recommissioned in July 2008. Capacity has since grown, and the distillery now runs six stills. For decades Braeval's output went almost exclusively into blended whisky, with no official single malt bottling; that changed in 2017 when Chivas Brothers released the distillery's first official single malt, a 16-year-old single cask, followed in 2018 by limited-edition 25, 27 and 30-year-old expressions for travel retail. Independent bottlers such as Gordon & MacPhail and Signatory have also released occasional single-cask Braeval malts, sometimes still labelled under the original Braes of Glenlivet name. Braeval has no visitor centre and is not open to the public.

Quick Facts

• Region: Speyside, Scotland
• Founded: 1973
• Owner: Chivas Brothers (Pernod Ricard)
• Status: Active
• Stills: 6 (2 wash, 4 spirit)

Core Range

Braeval has no long-standing official core range — the vast majority of its output is used as a component in blended Scotch whiskies such as Chivas Regal and 100 Pipers. Official single malt releases have been rare, limited-edition expressions from Chivas Brothers, including a 16 Year Old single cask (first released 2017) and 25, 27 and 30 Year Old travel-retail editions (2018), alongside occasional independent single-cask bottlings (e.g. from Gordon & MacPhail and Signatory) sometimes labelled Braes of Glenlivet. ABV and availability of these releases vary by batch and are not fixed core-range figures.