Facts about this distillery
Established
1825
Owner
Nikka
Annual Capacity
2,000,000 Litres
Region
Highland
Number of Stills
Four pot stills – two wash, two spirit
Website
N/A
Ben Nevis Distillery. As majestic as the mountain it’s from.
Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the UK. And its distillery, award-winning dram; and founder, are all equally imposing. ‘Long John’ McDonald, a 6ft 4 colossus of a man, and a giant of the Scotch whisky trade, had produced the dram along with his son, Donald, since 1826.
‘Long John’ bought the striking whitewash distillery from Angus McDonnell, who built it in 1825. Its freshwater source comes from the Allt a’Mhuilinn, which originates from two Ben Nevis springs: Coire Leis and Coire na’Ciste.
A mountainous single malt Scotch.
In the late 1800s, there was so much demand for the dram that the son opened a second distillery, simply named ‘Nevis’. In 1908, the two distilleries became one.
Much happened in the following years, including the demolition of the distillery in 1990. The Long John trademark was finally sold and no longer owned by the originators. ‘Long John’s’ trademark was finally sold to a Canadian businessman, and bootlegger, Joseph Hobbs in 1941.
Want your Scotch with or without peat?
The whisky’s current owners are the Japanese distillery giant, Nikka Whisky Distilling Company. They reopened in 1990. They had a portion of each year’s production to be peated. The preferred peaty bottling is part of the complete capacity of Ben Nevis Whisky being sold today, a couple of million litres per annum.
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