Johnnie Walker Vault Includes Whisky From Ghost Distillery Brora
Last year, Robb Report was invited to visit the Johnnie Walker Vault, the basement of the brand home in Edinburgh where you can create your own bespoke blend under the guidance of master blender Dr. Emma Walker. Today the brand announced the launch of a new high-end whisky that shares its name with that whisky lab—Johnnie Walker Vault, a blend that includes single malt from ghost distillery Brora.
Johnnie Walker is the most recognized name in blended scotch, not to mention one of most popular in terms of sales, combining malt and grain whisky drawn from more than 10 million casks distilled at Diageo’s 31 distilleries across Scotland. The Vault at Princes Street currently holds a selection of 500 whiskies selected by Walker from some of the rarest casks across the portfolio, and she chose a select few to combine for this new release, which will become a permanent prestige expression in the lineup.
That includes whisky from Brora, which as mentioned before is a ghost distillery that closed its doors in 1983. The distillery actually reopened in 2021, but of course the whisky being made there now is very different from what is in the leftover casks, which are still being matured and monitored by Diageo. Brora single malt has become highly collectible over the years due to its quality and limited availability, so the inclusion of this whisky in a blend is always a moment of which to take note. And, for the first time, whisky from the newly reopened Brora is also included in the blend, aged for just a few years but included to provide its own specific character to the whisky.
“Johnnie Walker Vault is what I’ve called my love letter to Scotland—a truly special country to which I hold a deep connection,” said Walker in a statement. “The creation of this whisky, a hand-selected blend of our extraordinary whiskies from across Scotland, is my way to express that.” We did not get to sample the liquid, but official tasting notes detail vanilla, almond, raspberry, gentle smoke, charred oak, leather, and tobacco on the palate. It’s bottled at 43.8 percent ABV and comes in a cube-shaped bottle which was inspired by an old Blue Label design.
This is a very limited release, so it will only be available at a few select locations—Harrods in London, the Johnnie Walker Experience in Edinburgh, and online from Justerini & Brooks—with a price tag of £1,100 (about $1,500) per bottle.
