Overview
The BenRiach distillery is a single malt Scotch whisky distillery in the Speyside area of Scotland. It is currently owned by Brown-Forman Corporation after being purchased on 1 June 2016 as a subsidiary from the BenRiach Distillery Company Limited, formed by two South African funding partners, Geoff Bell and Wayne Keiswetter, and Scotch whisky expert Billy Walker. In 2008, the company expanded their portfolio with the acquisition of the Glendronach distillery as well as the Glenglassaugh distillery in March 2013.
Location and contact details
Location: Elgin IV30 8SJ, Scotland
Visit Type: By appointment only
Co-ordinates: 57.608765, -3.283040
Web: https://www.benriachdistillery.com/ 
Twitter: BenRiach (@TheBenRiach)Facts and figures
| Location | Moray |
| Founded | 1898 |
| Owner | Brown-Forman Corporation |
| Water Source | Burnside Springs |
| Stills | 2 wash stills 2 spirit stills |
Opening Hours
The distillery does not have a visitor ceentre, so tours are stricly by appointment.
Tours
Connoisseur’s Tour
£35
The BenRiach Distillery is generally not open to the public. However, due to the high level of interest in visiting BenRiach they offer an exclusive Connoisseur’s Tour.
EXPLORE THE ART OF DISTILLATION AND CASK MATURATION ON THIS 1.5 HOUR TOUR OF THE DISTILLERY.
The Benriach Distillery tour will begin in one of only two working floor maltings in the speyside region, before taking you through the distillery where your guide will explain the whisky making process. In the still house learn about their bold and creative approach to distilling 3 types of spirit, uncovering our unconventional distilling heritage.
Your tour will continue with a visit to Warehouse 13, the oldest dunnage warehouse, home to the most experimental casks. Here you will discover how they have built theirreputation for eclectic cask maturation, before sampling a range of our whiskies in the visitor centre.
The tours are available on TUESDAYS and THURSDAYS at 10AM and 2PM. The distillery shop is only open after the tour. A wide range of the single malts and merchandise are available.
ADVANCE BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL.
Review: BenRiach (10:00 on 01/10/2019)
Price: £35
Things are changing at BenRiach since the acquisition by Brown-Forman. Previously there was a minimum number of people needed to book a tour, but a few weeks ago when I checked this was changed and you could book online.
The tour guide was a lady called Brenda who said she had been working at BrenRiach for five weeks; there was five others on the tour with me who were a group from Taiwan.
BenRiach is one of the few distilleries in Scotland which still malts their own barley, although they only malt for a few weeks a year. So on this tour as well as seeing the usual processes, you also get to see the kiln and malting floor. This is only in production for a few weeks and is timed to coincide with the Speyside Festival, and so was not in use when I visited.
The weather wasn't great, so the tour started inside the room where we would do the tastings, with the history of BenRiach distillery. We then moved outide and walked along to the main building used for production where we saw the Porteus mill in operation; the destoning maching was next to the mill and this is the first time I have seen one close up as it was in operation.
After this we visited the mash tun and wash backs before moving onto the stills and spirit safe. At each stage Brenda explained the process, except when we were at the mill as it was very noisy. She explained the milling after we moved to the next area.
We had a visit to one of the onsite warehouses where there was an explanation of the maturing process and Brenda explained the many different casks in use; many of the casks were introduced by Billy Walker before he moved on the The GlenAllachie.
The final part was to return to our starting point for the tasting of four expressions of the core ranges of the BenRiach single malt:
- Benriach Classic 10 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky
- BenRiach 12-Year-Old Sherry Wood
- Benriach Curiositas Peated 10 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky
- BenRiach 21 Year Old Temporis Single Malt Whisky
We also sampled a couple of distillery exclusives. As I was driving I wasn't able to taste fully when I was at the distillery, so they provided a drivers pack for me to take the samples away to nose and taste at my leisure.
This was a very good tour, which I am very happy to have been able to include on this years visit to Scotland.
History
The BenRiach Distillery was established by John Duff in 1898, close to the Longmorn Distillery which was also owned by Duff. The distilleries were joined by a private railway, with a private steam locomotive, the Puggy, to transport coal, barley, peat and barrels between the distilleries. Soon after the railway was established in 1900 the distillery stopped production in the wake of the bankruptcy of Pattison's whisky, a major Scotch Whisky purchaser. Only BenRiachs maltings remained in active use, producing malt for Longmorn. It didn't produce spirit again until 1965 when it was reopened by Glenlivet Distillers Ltd. In 1978 the distillery changed hands, this time to Seagrams. Seagrams became part of Pernod Ricard in 2001 and the BenRiach distillery began operating for just three months of every year. In 2004 the distillery was acquired by an independent consortium, the BenRiach Distillery Company Limited.
