BenRiach

THE BENRIACH

MALTOLOGISTS WITH AN EXPERIMENTAL EDGE

The old yet young innovative distillery in the heart of Speyside, BenRiach was first established in 1898. The founder was John Duff who was an explorer and an adventurer and brought a certain avantgarde sensibility to Speyside. His methods were unconventional and experimental and pushed the boundaries of traditional distilling and malt alchemy. He inspired the current guardians of The BenRiach and the modern whiskies they distil today.

The BenRiach distils three malt whisky styles – unpeated, peated and triple distilled and boasts some of the most experimental casks in Speyside. It is also one of only two distilleries in Speyside to use malt from their own on-site malting floor in the production of its single malts. This is a time-honoured craft that is seasonally celebrated for one month a year at the beginning of Spring. Indeed, it was this malting floor that kept The BenRiach alive during a hiatus that saw it close for many years. Neighbouring distillery Longmoor kept it in use and doing so kept the spririt of The BenRiach alive.

It is not just the malting floor that makes this Speyside distiller special, it is believed The Benriach holds the oldest peated whiskies in Speyside dating back to the 1970s and a cask inventory dating back to 1966. The distillery is renowned for its creative approach to cask maturation but is also unique in other methods such as its approach to water mashing.

The mashing of barley at The BenRiach is done at a gentle simmer using fourwater infusion rather than the usual three. This process is time consuming but essential to drawing out the essence of The BenRiach style. It allows maximum sweetness to be extracted from the barley and brings out the whisky’s sweet fruit flavour.

The fruit forward character of The BenRiach is equally enhanced by the onion shaped stills that run at a gentle simmer using a time-honoured and tailored fruit- forward distillation process fine tuned over the decades since 1965 when The BenRiach reopened. This process intensifies the stone fruit flavours and sweet barley character that is central to the taste of The BenRiach spirit. When it comes to maturation The BenRiach is rich in resources because at the heart of the distillery is the oldest, earthern floored, stone walled dunnage warehouse that is home to a treasure trove of the most diverse and rarest casks in Speyside. Warehouse 13, as it is known, is an integral thread in the rich tapestry that creates The BenRiach’s awardwinning malts.

Always aiming to enrich and expand their Single Malt Whisky offering, this year The BenRiach has added a 12 Year Old and a 21 Year Old to its peated range. Both will express the history and embody the story of The BenRiach Distillery, Speyside.

The contemporary expression of The BenRiach is a rich, fruit-forward Speyside Single Malt that sings with an abundance of stone fruit flavours, enticing sweetness and toasted oak spice, all dancing on the tongue together in sublime synchronicity.