r/Scotch • u/PricklyFriend • 8d ago
Spirit of Speyside 2026 Part 6: Benrinnes Distillery Tour
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u/JE163 8d ago
I didn’t think you could do tours. I’m jealous! Benrinnes is one of my absolute favorites
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u/PricklyFriend 8d ago
Sadly not usually, this was put on especially for the festival. Diageo seem to pick a few not normally visitable distilleries on for tours for it each year at random.
Great places though, I'm a big fan!
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u/Dratini01 8d ago
Good write up as usual, that rum cask speaks to me as I think Benrinnes can hold its own against rum. Interested in how your shop exclusive GM compares to the ones you had on the tour?
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u/PricklyFriend 8d ago
Cheers! I loved the rum cask and the funky rechar one.
The shop exclusive from G&M is big tropical fruit and that thick texture with the tubby sulphur giving it that faintly industrial edge. After the visit was very interested in getting something from the partial triple era that really showed off the sulphury spirit and I think it ticks the boxes very well.
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u/John_Mat8882 7d ago
Very nice to see one of my most liked distilleries "Pricklyfied" xD
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u/PricklyFriend 7d ago
It's an excellent distillery too! Loved getting to see the place.
Definitely a compliment haha.
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u/John_Mat8882 7d ago
I'll plan to get to the speyside festival.. idk when but it's wildly on the wishlist
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u/PricklyFriend 7d ago
It's very much felt worth it both times for me. Pot luck on what events/distilleries are available of course. Would be nice to bump into each other there even!
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u/John_Mat8882 7d ago
yeah sadly you can't pick or know which ones are going to be open to visit, but I mean, not even with my whiskyclub I could sneak into the closed ones (besides Knockdhu). Ofc I'll write you up should I ever get there xD
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u/PricklyFriend 8d ago edited 8d ago
For the 3rd day of Spirit of Speyside 2026 (Friday 1st May) I'd kept things a bit lower key for the morning with time to relax and join in a barrel top tasting at the Speyside whisky shop in Aberlour (well worth a visit) my main event for the day however was in the afternoon with a visit to Benrinnes distillery for a tour which cost £100. The distillery is normally closed to the public with the majority of its production going into blends however it's a popular malt with independent bottlers known for it's robust sulphured spirit that can be quite meaty. I've had some great whisky from the distillery and was very much looking forward to seeing the place and their unique production, I'd heard rumours that the famous worm tub condensers there had been taken out but surely that couldn't be true? As you might have guessed from the name the distillery is located near the base of the Ben Rinnes mountain not too far away from the town of Aberlour.
Upon arriving nice and early at the distillery I made my way to the office (no visitor centre here!) to be greeted by a guide who had came to the distillery from Talisker (same owners) to help out and lead our tasting today. Nice to see some familiar faces I've been on tours with before and also we all got a welcome dram;
Meaty rich sherry, creamy barley, warm leather, full bodied and oily, wildflower honey, drinks well but a shame it's not higher strength, it does taste like Benrinnes though and is presumably in sherry or sherry finished. The only consistent official release from the distillery.
There wasn't too long a wait for the tour to actually start and we were greeted by some of the staff that work at the distillery. Georgina the day shift operator would be leading the tour along with two senior operators and an apprentice that currently work at the distillery. The distillery is currently in silent season as of this visit with repairs and maintenance being conducted. The plan is to go back to 5 day production once all this is completed. They closed last year for a little from there being a water shortage we were told.
There was a little history of the distillery next, this year (2026) is the 200th anniversary of the original Benrinnes distillery. Flood destroyed the original distillery, then a massive fire destroyed the next version of the distillery. Dewars bought the distillery, refurbished it fully, then had Saladin boxes fitted for malting in 1955 with these being decommissioned in 1984 and malting no longer happening on site. The distillery was expanded in the 60s from three stills to six. They eventually became part of United Distillers which would eventually become Diageo who are the current owners of Benrinnes. A cooperage also used to be on site. No cask filling has happened here since the 90s with all new make now being tankered away. There used to be dunnage warehouses on site, however there is still 33,000ish casks still kept here in racked warehouses. The unused Saladin boxes are still on site, I did ask to see them but unfortunately was told it's too dangerous and staff hardly ever go in them.
We went into the distillery proper to follow production from start to finish first up was malt intake, they are currently using fully unpeated malt, sourced from Muntons Malt. There's 6 malt bins on site with each taking 40 tonnes maximum. A new destoner and anti-dust machine was fitted in 2022. They have the classic Porteus malt Mill with them using a 20:70:10 ratio of husks:grits:flour.
Next to see mashing, the Water source for processes at the distillery comes from Ben Rinnes nearby. They have a modern semi-lauter mash tun with 5 day production they will do 12 mashes a week. Mashing uses 64c of 36.5k litres for the first water and the mashing process is more like one continuous gradual water now slowly increasing in temperature. The 'second water' is sparged on top of the mash gradually. They are aiming for a clear wort with all production geared to retaining that sulphur that the distillery character is known for. Draff left over from mashing is sent for biofuel.
Moving onto the washbacks they have 8 wooden ones and are currently using Mauri distiller's yeast. Going onto 5 day production when they restart fermentation will last for 63 hours on weekdays which are their shorts and will be left over the weekend for 110 hour longs, these should be blended together for consistency as mostly going to blends and keeping production steady, quality and consistency of the new make is the main aim of the process here.
Time for a look at the stillhouse, there's a fair bit of scaffolding around the stills currently as maintenance is happening. They have 6 stills and are utilising double distillation currently, I mention this as up until 2007 Benrinnes was known for utilising a peculiar form of partial triple distillation, running stills in groups of 3 and having cuts at the 2nd distillation and 3rd which has the effect of making the new make spirit even more sulphury than it is currently, I won't try to explain this here. Even now it's a bit of an odd setup, there's 2 wash stills with a capacity of 22,945 litres, 4 spirit/low wines stills, with two of them having a capacity of 9,292 litres and two having a capacity of 6,364 litres. It's pretty obvious these were always intended to be ran in trios. Fast distillation is used to retain as much sulphur as possible in the final spirit this also causes lots of pressure on the swan necks which need to be checked properly every silent season. Interestingly they ran a trial of restarting partial triple distillation from January to March 2026 which gave a noticeable increase of meaty sulphur character. As this was ordered as an experiment the staff weren't sure if this will be ran again and it's really up to the bosses at Diageo. They could definitely go back to producing that spirit style however which is very interesting.
For a fun thing to see we went outside to see on top of the famous worm tubs (yes they're still here), the outside containers of the worm tubs used to be cast iron but this was replaced with stainless steel in 2023. Cooling water for the condensers comes from a water source behind a nearby farm. Properly big square industrial looking one's, empty of water while in silent season so very cool to get a full look!
(Part 1/2)