Benrinnes distillery is a

malt whisky Malt whisky is whisky made from a fermented mash consisting primarily of malted barley. If the product is made exclusively at a single distillery (along with other restrictions), it is typically called a single malt whisky. Although malt whisky ca ...

distillery in

Aberlour Aberlour ( gd, Obar Lobhair) is a village in Moray, Scotland, south of Elgin on the road to Grantown. The Lour burn is a tributary of the River Spey, and it and the surrounding parish are both named Aberlour, but the name is more commonly us ...

producing an eponymous whisky. It was founded in 1826, and is still active. The distillery employed a unique partial triple distillation process until 2007.

History

The first time whisky was produced at the site of Benrinnes distillery was in 1826, when a distillery was founded by Peter McKenzie. This distillery was destroyed by a flood in 1829, and was rebuilt in 1835 in the outbuildings of a farmhouse by John Innes, and officially founded under the name ''Lyne of Ruthrie'' The distillery went bankrupt, and Lyne of Ruthrie was sold to William Smith. Smith changed the name of the distillery to the present name Benrinnes before selling the property to David Edward who ran the distillery until his son Alexander Edward took over operation of the distillery. In 1887

Alfred Barnard Alfred Barnard (1837–1918) was a British brewing and distilling historian. Life and work According to the limited family records available, Barnard was born in 1837 into a Baptist family in Thaxted, a rural village in Essex. He was one of eigh ...

described the distillery in his work ''The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom''. At this time the distillery had two stills, a wash still with a capacity of 1080 gallons, and a spirit still of 1004 gallons. In 1896 the distillery was damaged in a fire. It was rebuilt and modernised; the distillery converted to be powered by electricity. The distillery was sold to

John Dewar & Sons Dewar's () is a brand of blended Scotch whisky owned by Bacardi, which claims the brand's "White Label" to be the top-selling blended Scotch in the US. Dewar's is also the world's most awarded blended Scotch whisky with more than 1,000 medals ea ...

in 1922. Under Dewars it was rebuilt in 1955, replacing the

malting floor Malting is the process of steeping, germinating and drying grain to convert it into malt. The malt is mainly used for brewing or whisky making, but can also be used to make malt vinegar or malt extract. Various grains are used for malting, mo ...

s with a

Saladin box A Saladin box is an instrument used for malting barley. It consists of a large rectangular container about 50 meters in length, and a set of vertical screws attached to a crossbar. The crossbar moves horizontally across the length of the container ...

, and ending the farming activities on the site. The distillery was expanded in 1966, adding three stills to the three present stills, which were all converted to internal heating in 1970. In 1974 Benrinnes changed its distillation process to a partial triple distillation process. The distillery stopped producing its own malt in 1984 opting to buy malt on the market instead, and removed its saladin box. The triple distillation process was abandoned in 2007, when it switched to a more common configuration of two wash stills and four spirit stills.

Production

Benrinnes employed some unusual production techniques. Between 1974 and 2007 the distillery used a unique partial triple distillation process. In this process the feints from the wash still, the weaker parts of feints of the spirit still, and the feints from the low wine still itself are distilled in a low wines still, while the spirit still is fed by the foreshots and the heart of the wash and low wine still, and its own foreshots and strong feints. The necks of the stills are cooled by worm tubs, a technique that is no longer very common. Benrinnes produces one fifteen-year-old semi-official bottling in the Flora and Fauna range since 1991.

References

{{scottish whisky distilleries Distilleries in Scotland