Benromach

The Aberdeenshire Historic Environment Record says Duncan McCallum and F.W. Brickman founded the distillery as "Glenromach", built in 1898-9 to designs by Charles C. Doig. A slump delayed production until 1900, and it closed the same year for lack of money. Harvey McNair and Co of London ran it from 1911 until the First World War, and Benromach Distillery Ltd until 1925. In 1938 it passed to Associated Scottish Distilleries, later part of Scottish Malt Distillers. It was modernised between 1966 and 1974 and closed in 1983.

Gordon & MacPhail took over the site in 1993, began restoring it in 1997, and Charles, Prince of Wales, reopened it in 1998. The first whisky of the new era was bottled in 2004. Historic Environment Scotland's listing of the malt barn instead dates the distillery to about 1890 and names a Mr Edwards of Sanquhar, Forres, as founder.

Benromach stands on Invererne Road in Forres, Moray, in the Speyside region. Its water, the company says, rises at the Chapelton Spring in the Romach Hills, a couple of miles (about 3 km) behind the distillery. Scottish barley is grown locally and malted with a little peat smoke to the distillery's specification. The site keeps a pyramid-roofed malting kiln, a three-storey brick malt barn listed Category B, and a red-brick chimney once used to vent coal-fired stills.

When restored, the plant was rearranged so that one person can run it. A four-roller Boby mill grinds the malt, and distillers control the mash by hand. Fermentation in larch washbacks takes three to five days and uses both brewer's and distiller's yeast, which the company says gives a more complete fermentation. The wash is distilled twice in two copper pot stills, and the cut is made by the distillers' judgement. The company says most flavour comes from first-fill casks that previously held bourbon or sherry, and the whisky matures in dunnage-style warehouses on site.

The company describes Benromach as a rich single malt with "a delicate hint of smoke". It argues that, before the 1960s, Speyside distilleries dried malt over peat fires, so that even light Speyside whiskies carried some smoke, and that most later moved to unpeated malt. Benromach presents its style as a revival of that older Speyside character. A Contrasts range tests other barley drying methods and cask types.