Teaninich

Teaninich is situated on a headland in the east of Scotland, north of Inverness. The River Averon runs beside the distillery. Teaninich belongs to the Diageo spirits group and produces mainly for the Malt portion of their Blended Whiskies. The only 'original bottling' to date is a 10-year-old from the Flora and Fauna series. However, there are frequently independent bottlings, for example from Signatory Vintage, Duncan Taylor or Gordon & McPhail.  

The water for the production of Teaninich Whisky comes from the Dairy Well Spring. The Highland distillery's production process has some unique features, from the use of a mash filter instead of a common mash tun to the history of the stills. 

There are still six original pot stills of various sizes at Teaninich, which were installed during a renovation in 1970. Later, six more stills were added, while at the same time the still house was enlarged. In the course of this, the three old wash stills were converted into spirit stills, which of course first had to be adjusted properly so that the old familiar character of the spirit was retained. The new six stills are identical in shape to the originals, but have a different heating system: they are no longer heated by steam inside the still, but the wash is pumped out in a more efficient process, warmed up in an external heat exchanger and then pumped back into the still, where it finally starts to boil. All twelve stills at Teaninich have reflux balls; this favours an oily spirit that tends to be light and grassy. 

Teaninich uses unpeated malt for their Single Malts. For its further processing, the distillery does not have a roller mill as known from many others, but a somewhat more modern hammer mill. This works with very fast rotating steel plates - so-called hammers - which smash the grains and thus grind them into very fine flour. So the mill does not produce grist, as is the case with most other Scottish distilleries, but a kind of wholegrain flour. 

With the "flour", the mashing thus produces a pulpy consistency rather than the porridge-like mash familiar from other distilleries. The fine consistency has the effect that the sugars can be dissolved better and you get a higher yield of alcohol. In comparison, this process is more efficient and saves resources, but it also has a disadvantage: the solid components of the mash cannot be strained out so well with the usual large mash tun filters. Therefore, Teaninich has a big industrial mash filter instead, a so-called cloth filter. In this extra device the mash is filtered through cloth to catch all the solid components. 

Teaninich works with 20 washbacks. 18 of them are made of wood and two others of stainless steel. The fermentation tanks are filled with 56,000 litres of mash, which ferments there for 76 to 80 hours. This produces what is known as 'clear wort', which at 8% alcohol already has the oily and grassy character that is to be retained during distillation. 

Teaninich distillery was founded in 1817 by Captain Hugh Munro as one of the first legal distilleries. The soldier, later known as a war hero, rebuilt Teaninich Castle and at the same time built the distillery. In 1830, the distillery was sold to his younger brother John Munro. But he too was in the military (as Lieutenant General) and therefore often on the road, and so Teaninich Distillery was leased out in 1850. Eventually it was closed during the years of the First World War.

In the 1970s there was an expansion including the installation of new stills. Over the years, the owners changed several times until the distillery reopened in 1991 and one can speak of continuous production. In 1992, the first Single Malt bottling came onto the market. Today, the distillery belongs to the Diageo spirits group and produces mainly for their Blended Whiskies.