Scotland, Speyside: Single malt whisky through the producing distilleries: history, making, production and tasting notes

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Balmenach

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The distillery

Balmenach distilleryBalmenach Distillery
Cromdale, Grantown on Spey
Morayshire PH26 3PF
+44 1479 872 569
Owner: Inver House Distillers Ltd
Creation date1824
Picture: courtesy of Ingvar Ronde, Malt whisky yearbook

The Balmenach distillery has been founded in 1824 by James McGregor who was a moonshine distiller in the Tomintoul areafor years, together with his two brothers.
However, James McGregor was one of the first distillers to apply for a licence allowing him to distil legally. From the very fisrt year of activity, his whisky has been bought by an Aberdeen company, as well as by Lord Selkirk and the Duke of Bedford.
James died in the 1870's, leaving his widow alone for running the distillery and the farm. She was not able to do this and neglected everything, including her children, as she rapidly became the best customer of the distillery.... Her son John was obliged to come back from New Zealand where is was earnig lots of money with his farm to help his mother to run the business in 1878.
John did not modify anything to his father's distillery, despite the fact that the facilities were in such a bad state of repair. The refurbishment began not earlier than 1897, when James Mcgregor, son of John became the first manager of the Balmenach-Glenlivet Distillery Ltd.
The first thing James did was building a railway to the station of Cromdale.
The distillery was closed during World War I, just as most of them.
A group of blenders (MacDonald Green, Peter Dawson and James Watson) bought the distillery in 1922. A few years later, the group became part of the Distiller Company Ldt, who left its shares to teh Scottish Malt Distillers Ltd in 1930. This group became later United Distillers, after DCL was absorbed by Guiness.
The Balmenach distillery closed again during World War II .
Electricity has been installed in 1950, and all the installations but the malt mill were supplied by it. The malting floors were replaced in 1963 by a Saladin Box
The farm was closed in 1978, and replaced by a waste processing plant which produces cattle feed.
UDV closed the distillery in 1993. On december 2 1997, Inver House took over the distillery and the production resumed on March 2 1998. However, the warehouses were empty when the distillery was taken over, and some more years will be necessary to find the first production of the distillery on the market.

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The whisky

The sites below offer tasting notes for this distillery. Please click on the logo to access this notes.

France whisky-distilleries www.whisky-distilleries.info
Passionnés du malt passionnesdumalt.free.fr
Comaw Club o. mosellan des amateurs de whisky
English whisky-distilleries www.whisky-distilleries.info
Whiskyfun www.whisky-fun.com
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Geography

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Speyside

Speyside Map

The Speyside area is situated at the North of the Cairngorm mountain and goes to the Moray firth. It is delimited by two rivers: the Findhorn at the West side and the Deveron on the East side.
The area is named after the river Spey. Most of the distilleries take their water in one of its affluents; the Fiddich, the Livet or the Avon.
About sixty distilleries from Speyside are described on this site.

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Click on the map for a list of the distilleries of the area, on the title for further information
about the Speyside area, and if you want to make an "alphabetical journey" through the area, please
click on one of the pagode roofs, according to the direction you want to follow

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Photos of the distillery

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