The Balvenie is located in Dufftown, in the middle of the Speyside region. No fewer than six major active distilleries call this place home, making Dufftown one of the most Whisky-centric towns in the world.

William Grant is one the most well-known names in Scotch. After working in the trade at Mortlach Distillery for twenty years, he founded his first distillery of his own — The Balvenie — in 1892. The distillery is still owned by the company that bears his name.

There are several things that make Balvenie special, not the least of which, is that they have their own farm on which 1000 acres of barley are grown exclusively for use in their spirit. They also have their own malting floor, cooperage coppersmith and aging on site.

This is one of the main reasons that Whisky-lovers world-wide consider them to be a throw back to a baygone era. It retains a unique character from all of these elements, in a age of robust mechanization, automation, and industrialization.

That said, we need to note that with 5 wash and 6 spirit stills running every day of the week, two elements of production have been outstripped — they simply do not have the capacity to malt or store enough of their production on site. So some malting and storage services need to be contracted outside the property.

That strategic outsourcing has helped them up capacity to a staggering 5.6 million liters per year. How much is that? Imagine the center court at Wimbeldon in London flooded to a depth of more than 70 feet… that’s how much.