The Secret

At Benromach we source malt from a number of major maltsters throughout Scotland, ensuring we obtain only the finest malted barley available throughout the year.

Benromach is Speyside's smallest working distillery providing opportunities to embrace innovation and try different things.   Different varieties of malt, such as: Chariot, Golden Promise and Optic, are all purchased in small batches of 30 tonnes and peated to our exact specifications.  In 1999 we started using organic malted barley.  Many years later this resulted in the launch of Benromach Organic - the first bottled single malt to fully certified by The Soil Association.

The malted barley is milled in a four roller Boby mill. Once ground, the malt now in the form of grist, is stored in our grist hopper, which has a two tonne capacity. The grist is stored here prior to being added to the mash tun and hot waters.

One and a half tonnes of grist are transferred to our stainless steel semi-lauter mash tun and three waters are added, each one following at a higher temperature. The waters dissolve the soluble sugars in the grist, creating sugary water called wort.

The first two waters produce 7,500 litres of wort, which are transferred to the wooden washbacks. The final water produces very weak, sugary wort, which is retained as the first water of the next mashing. The grist residue, now known as draff, is removed and used as animal feed.

Benromach has four wooden larch washbacks, which were resized using the wood from the distillery's original washbacks. Each washback has the capacity to hold 11,000 litres of worts. Two varieties of yeast, brewers and distillers, are added to the worts to start the fermentation process.

Fermentation lasts between three and five days and the product that is left is a weak, beer-like solution now called wash. This is now transferred, or charged, to the wash still for distillation to commence.

The wash is heated using ten steam plates, similar in construction to household radiators. These allow the wash to be heated gently but effectively for greater control during the distillation. As alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than water, it rises first up the neck of the still, along the Lyne arm and into the top of a copper condenser. The condenser cools the vapours returning them to the liquid phase.

From the condenser, the liquid now known as low wines, flows through the spirit safe and into the wooden low wines and feints receiver. Approximately 2,500 litres of low wines are collected from each 7,500 litre distillation at an alcoholic strength of between 20% and 23% abv.

The second distillation commences when the spirit still is filled with the contents of the low wines and feints receiver and the liquid is heated in the same way as the wash still.?Both the wash and spirit stills have been specifically designed to produce a full, rich spirit.

From each spirit distillation approximately 600 litres of pure Benromach spirit is collected and transferred to the wooden intermediate spirit receiver (ISR).?The spirit is then transferred to the Spirit Receiver - Warehouse Vat (SRWV) and reduced to 63.5% abv using the spring water from the Romach Hills. Now the spirit is ready to be filled into casks.

The interaction of the wood and the spirit adds contributing flavours to the final product.  Using generations of experience we carefully hand select each of the casks used for maturing Benromach spirit. For Benromach 10 Years Old, a careful mixture of first fill bourbon barrels provide a sweet spicy flavour and first fill sherry butts provide a smooth richness to the whisky.

Using American and European oak, new sherry butts and hogsheads are hand made in Spain and then seasoned.  The casks are then returned to Benromach Distillery, filled with spirit and left to mature for many years.  Ex-bourbon barrels are sourced from cooperages throughout Scotland.

Once the casks are filled they are transferred to the traditional dunnage-style warehouses to start maturation. They will be stowed no more than three casks high on traditional wooden rails over an earthen floor. The maturation progress of the casks will be carefully monitored.  Only when the whisky has matured to the highest quality standards will it be bottled as Benromach.