Ben Nevis
The distillery was founded by John MacDonald in 1825 at the foot of the famous Ben Nevis hill. Its Malt Whisky is rather strong and intense. Read more about it below.↓
Details about the Distillery
The Whisky
The distillery character of the Ben Nevis Whiskies is rather strong and intense. You often get a spicy aroma, and Ben Nevis regularly uses peat smoke to dry their malt. You can also feel the honey and the heather of the Scottish moors. The number of distillery bottlings is very limited, and most of the older Whiskies come from independent bottlers. Ben Nevis is very famous for their ceramics decanter. The decanter is very nice to look at, and the gift box shows the hill 'Ben Nevis'.
The independent bottlings are numerous and include all the big bottlers and quite a number of small unknown bottlers.
There is also a Blend brand called the Ben Nevis Blend. There are many products in this Blend range varying from soft to very intense.
The Production
The production at Ben Nevis has increased a lot over the years. It rose from a low 500,000 litres per year to a high 2,000,000 litres per year. In the early times the Whisky was shipped through the Caledonia canal over the Loch Ness. Today everything is transported with trucks. The water source for the Whisky is Allt a'Mhuilinn.
The Pot Stills
Ben Nevis has pretty big pot stills. Two wash stills with 25,000 litres volume and two spirit stills with 20,000 litres. The stills are tubular and cone-shaped with a wide neck and no reflux bowl. The lyne arm is almost horizontal after the bend. The smaller spirit stills need a quite fast distillation speed to keep up with their wash still brothers, which hold 5,000 litres more. This all results in a very edgy, intense Highland Malt.
The Malting
Unfortunately the malting floors at Ben Nevis are closed, and all the malt comes from big international malting companies.
Ben Nevis uses a modern stainless steel mashtun. It replaces the old cast-iron mash tun.
The History
The distillery was founded by John MacDonald in 1825 at the foot of the famous Ben Nevis hill. 20 years later his son opened another distillery called Nevis. It was closed after 30 years of production. Today its buildings serve as warehouses for the Ben Nevis distillery. In the middle of the 20th century the distillery experimented with continuous distillation. It was one of the first distilleries that were able to produce Grain and Malt Whisky.
Then finally in 1989 the Japanese Whisky company Nikka purchased Ben Nevis. It is still the owner of the Ben Nevis distillery.
The Visitor Centre
The visitor centre was opened in 1991. There are two tours. The top tour features a full-depth tour of the distillery and several tastings in the Ben Nevis board room. There is also a restaurant and a coffee shop.