Grant’s Balvenie Distillery
The whisky reviews blog delves into the story of William Grant and his Balvenie Distillery… while reviewing the DoubleWood single malt.
William Grant was born on the 19th of December 1839 and spent much of his early life working on his Father’s farm. After training as an office clerk, however, he found employment as a bookkeeper at the Mortlach Distillery in Dufftown, where he worked for the next 20 years.
Grant was a man of great ambition and in 1886 he left his position at Mortlach and bought land near Balvenie Castle upon which he built his own distillery. Glenfiddich went into production on Christmas Day that year and would go on to become one of the most famous single malt distilleries in the world.
By 1892, Grant had decided the time was right to expand his empire with the construction of a second distillery on the same estate. At first, named Glen Gordon, this new enterprise would eventually come to be known as Balvenie, after the crumbling old castle which lay close by.
For much of its existence, Balvenie produced whisky bound for Grant’s blended Scotch range and was rarely, if ever, bottled as a single malt. This position changed in 1990, however, when a third distillery was constructed. Kininvie relieved the pressure on Balvenie and freed up some of the malt for an official bottling. This situation has only been improved further with the construction of the Ailsa Bay malt distillery within the Grivan grain plant. It seems the decision to release Balvenie as a single malt in its own right was a wise one, with the brand now recognised as one of the fastest growing on the market.
Balvenie was one of the first Scotch whiskies to undergo the practice known as ‘cask finishing’, an experiment which led in 1993 to the release of ‘Doublewood’, a single malt matured in bourbon barrels before being transferred for a secondary maturation in Oloroso sherry casks. Though unusual at the time, this process has now become commonplace across the entirety of the Scotch whisky industry.
Balvenie DoubleWood Review
Smell: The nose is rich and complex with notes of raisins and baked apples. There’s some berry top notes and lots of oak. There’s even a very faint suggestion of what might be smoke. Not something I’d expect to find here, necessarily.
Taste: Nicely spicy on the palate with pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg. There’s also caramel and butter pastries with a wee woody touch. That wee raspberry top note is there again and there’s a bit of charcoal at the back.
Thoughts: Balvenie is so much more than Glendiddich’s wee brother. The whisky is a completely different beast and a fantastic dram in its own right. It’s full-bodied with some typically fruity Speyside notes. The sherry casks add an extra layer to proceedings, however, creating a dram that’s a little more complex than you’d maybe expect from a 12-year-old at 40% abv. Prices seem to have climbed a bit in recent years and I’m not sure I’d be willing to pay £45 these days but I can still recognise Balvenie DoubleWood as a quality malt.
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