Luxury Brands - The Balvenie

The name Balvenie means village of luck and this village is very lucky to have such a beautiful distillery. The Balvenie whiskies tend to keep their flavours defined to a certain character, they most commonly are sweet with honey and vanilla notes. These flavours get combined with flavours of different casks creating a marriage of incredible fruity flavours with the vanilla and honey.

The Balvenie distillery was built in 1892 by William J. Grant and is still in the hands of William Grant & Sons LTD.

Once William had built the distillery he had to save on the equipment, so he used the stills from the Lagavulin distillery. As years went past the Balvenie whisky gained popularity so the distillery increased the number of stills from two to four and then in 1971 the whole distillery was renovated, increasing the total amount of stills to nine.

Balvenie uses the traditional malting floors used by many distilleries back in the day, however due to the high levels of production needed the malt supplied by the malting floor is not enough and so they have begun to buy malt from big malting companies. The malting floors at Balvenie are open and working to this day. The Balvenie is still one of the few distilleries where you can buy whisky made in the style before the industrialisation of Whisky. 

The distillery has an annual output of 5.6 million litres of alcohol, one of the highest for a Single Malt distillery. This is capable by the amount of stills as well as the fact that Balvenie has its own farm which is 1000 acres large and grows Scottish barley, malting floors, local spring and copper-smith as well as the usual distillery departments.

The copper-smith is one of the most important jobs as they will keep all of the stills and pipes in good shape which is an important factor in the distillery's character.

Balvenie uses five wash stills which can hold up to 13,000 litres. Their shape is round and equipped with a reflux bowl which is to get a higher level of proof without adding any extra flavour.

The spirit stills are a bit bigger. This means you can distil at a slow pace and separate the bad tastes in the alcohol better with the intention to remove them. To do this they use the lyne arm to separate the spirit to create a new spirit. This is why the Balvenie is so smooth without sharp undertones.

Majority of the warehouses at Balvenie are kept flat by and made of old grey stone by tradition. This and the Scottish Highland climate let the Whisky mature very slowly which makes it very smooth. The choice of casks at the Balvenie warehouse is very diverse, they use a big variety from Bourbon casks to Sherry casks and even wine casks.

One of the most popular Balvenie releases is the 12 year old Doublewood which involves the whisky being aged in Bourbon casks before being finished in Sherry casks. The result is Sweet with a good body. The bourbon characters quickly develop and as they do, a gentle spice and the slightest hint of vanilla appears.

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Written by Oliver Partington