Benromach

The ancient Benromach distillery is located on the outskirts of the town of Forres, nestled among the Scottish valleys of Speyside. The old Victorian-style distillery was founded in 1898 by Duncan McCallum, of the Glen Nevis distillery in Campbeltown, and FW Brickman, a spirits retailer in Leith, and built on land owned by Alexander Edward, a legend in the history of malt spirits. After various events and changes from hand to hand, the distillery was dismantled and closed by the last owner. In 1993 Gordon and MacPhail, whiskey merchants and bottlers from Elgin, acquired the distillery, renovated its structures and recovered the spirit of the old master distillers and the ancient craftsmanship. Above all, they recover that random error in the burning of peat that had distinguished the original Benromach. With the advent of new commercial malts, the subtle smokiness of Speyside's smallest distillery was in danger of being lost forever. Only patient recovery work has made it possible to return to each dram of Benromach not a simple whisky, but a style, where the nuances count. This whiskey is made strictly by hand, using only locally grown Scottish barley, and malted with a little peat smoke to exact specifications passed down through the distillery. The springs of Spring Chapelton, in the Ronach Hills provide extremely pure water, percolated for thousands of years through the sandstone and granite, which gives a unique and unmistakable imprint to this pure malt. Together with the brewer's yeast and the copper still, these are the main ingredients for the production of Benromach single malt, to which must be added the patience of the distillers who give the whiskey spirit all the time necessary to acquire the sweet medium spirit body that is needed for a long maturation in the filling barrels, all of the highest quality and filled strictly by hand.