Balvenie Distillery — Speyside Single Malt Whisky

Balvenie Distillery is a Scotch whisky distillery located in Dufftown, Speyside, Scotland. It was founded in 1892 and is currently owned by William Grant & Sons, the same family-run company that has held it since its foundation. Balvenie is famous for being one of only a handful of Scottish distilleries that still grows some of its own barley, operates its own floor maltings, and employs an on-site coppersmith and cooperage, giving it an unusually complete "grain to glass" production process.

History

Balvenie was built by William Grant, who had spent around twenty years learning the trade as a bookkeeper at nearby Mortlach distillery. Having already established Glenfiddich in 1886–87, Grant purchased a 12-acre site adjoining that distillery and, largely using secondhand equipment, built Balvenie around the 15th-century Balvenie Castle from which it takes its name (the site was initially known as Glen Gordon). The foundation stone was laid in 1886 and the distillery first ran spirit on 1 May 1893. Unlike most of its Speyside neighbours, Balvenie has never changed hands or been mothballed: it has remained continuously under William Grant & Sons ownership and in more or less continuous production since the 1890s, expanding its still house and malting capacity several times through the 20th century. Malt Master David Stewart, who joined the company in 1962, became closely associated with Balvenie from the 1980s onward and pioneered the wood-finishing (or "double maturation") technique that would later define much of the range, transferring maturing whisky from one cask type into a second, such as from ex-bourbon casks into ex-sherry, port, or rum casks.

Quick Facts

• Region: Speyside
• Founded: 1892 (first distillation 1893)
• Owner: William Grant & Sons
• Status: Active
• Stills: 5 wash stills and 6 spirit stills

Core Range

Balvenie's core range is built around David Stewart's wood-finishing philosophy and includes: DoubleWood 12 Year Old (40% ABV), matured in traditional whisky oak casks and finished in European oak sherry casks; Caribbean Cask 14 Year Old (43% ABV), finished in casks that previously held Caribbean rum; DoubleWood 17 Year Old (43% ABV); and PortWood 21 Year Old (40% ABV), finished in casks that held vintage port. The range extends further with older and more limited expressions, including single barrel, single cask, and cask-finish bottlings reaching up to 30, 40, and 50 years old.