Balvenie

The Balvenie is distilled at the Balvenie distillery in Dufftown, Speyside, which William Grant built next to his Glenfiddich distillery in the 1890s. It is still owned by the family company William Grant & Sons, which distils, matures and bottles the whisky.

Balvenie is known for keeping traditional crafts on site: it still does some of its own floor malting, and has its own coopers and coppersmith. The style is rich and honeyed, with vanilla, malt and dried fruit. Its long-serving malt master David Stewart is credited with pioneering the idea of finishing whisky in a second type of cask.

That idea runs through the range. The DoubleWood 12 Year Old moves from American oak to European oak sherry casks, the 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask is finished in rum casks, and there have been Peated Cask and Madeira Cask finishes. Older buyers may still meet the discontinued 10 Year Old Founder's Reserve.

Above the core sit vatted batch releases such as Tun 1401 and Tun 1509, The Balvenie Stories series, aged bottlings like the 21 and 30 Year Old, and occasional single cask vintages. Independent bottlings of Balvenie under its own name are rare.