BALVENIE

The Balvenie is unique among single malts, thanks to natural alchemy and centuries-old craftmanship.
Whisky making at Balvenie is dedicated to maintaining the Five Rare Crafts:

• HOME GROWN BARLEY
  Balvenie grows its own barley for malting, sowing on its thousand-acre farm (Balvenie Mains) which overlooks the distillery
• MALTING FLOOR
  Balvenie operates a working malting floor and it represents one of only a handful left in Scotland. Here, the spreaded grain is turned by hand by Balvenie's malt men and dryed using anthracite and some peat.
• COPPER STILLS
  Copper stills affects taste of the whisky. Two important factors affecting Balvenie's taste are the size and shape of the copper stills, which have maintained the "Balvenie Ball" shape, with a bulge or boil ball at the base of the swan's neck.
• COOPERAGE
  Balvenie only uses on-site coopers to repair, fill and seal their whisky casks all day, trusting their men only to toast the wood just enough to release the flavours.
• MALT MASTER
  David C. Stewart MBE started working at Balvenie in 1962, when he was only 17. Dedicating his life to the whisky industry, has mastered through the years the complex skill of creating the finest single malt whiskies.

• 1892 William Grant builds The Balvenie Distillery in the old Balvenie New House
• 1893 First Distillation takes place in May
• 1957 The two stills are increased by two
• 1965 Two new stills are installed
• 1971 The first official bottling of The Balvenie single malt whisky is released
• 1982 Founder's Reserve is launched
• 1987 The Balvenie is released as a 50 yo, one of the industry's first bottling of such age
• 1996 Two vintage bottlings and a Port wood finish are launched
• 2001 Balvenie Islay Cask is released
• 2004 David C. Stewart MBE celebrates 30 years as Malt Master at Balvenie
• 2010 Tun 1401 is launched by Balvenie, a marriage of few Davide C. Stewarts' favourite rare casks
• 2014 Tun 1509 replaces Tun 1401
• 2015 The Balvenie DCS Compendium is launched

Balvenie Distillery is equipped with a 11.8 ton full lauter mash tun, 9 wooden and 5 stainless steel washbacks with a fermentation time of 68 hours, 5 wash still and 6 spirit stills.
Balvenie is also one of a handful distilleries left in Scotland still owning an operating Malting Floor, producing part of their own malting and having a coppersmith and a cooperage on site.

Balvenie Distillery capacity is around 6.8 million litres of alcohol.

Balvenie's core products consist of:

• Doublewood 12 yo
• Doublewood 17 yo
• Carribean Cask 14 yo
• Single Barrel 12 yo First Fill
• Single Barrel 15 yo Sherry Cask
• Single Barrel 25 yo Traditional Oak
• Portwood 21 yo
• 30 yo
• 40 yo
• 50 yo (extremely rare)