Today's Behind The Barrel entry, our series of blogs that take a dive into the history of a distillery Is Speysides own BenRiach distillery. 

BenRiach was founded in 1889 by John Duff, this was around the time of 1890's boom where 33 new distilleries were established in Scotland for whisky production. 

John Duff was serial entrepreneur within the whisky industry, having pursed interest of whisky at home and abroad, John decided to establish his new distillery on a "Ben" a small hill on a old farm known as "Riach" which formed the name of BenRiach. 

BenRiach disttilery was not producing for very long, as in 1900 the Pattison crash affected the industry shuttering production.  The short answer to what The Pattison crash was caused by is of one of industry leaders overextending credit to astronomical unsustainable levels leading to inventible crash when debtors came calling and were unable to collect. 

BenRiach distillery sat pretty much silent of production for nearly 60 years. Floor malting from BenRiach was used however by a neighbour distillery of Longmorn, the two distillery's connected by a small train line and train. 

In 1960 the whisky industry experienced another boom period as demand globally for Scotch whisky was in high demand, particular in United States. So in 1965 BenRiach resumed production of whisky for the first time this century, spearheaded by the Glenlivet Distillers group who owned the distillery at this period. 

1972 was key year for BenRiach as they started experimenting with highland peat whiskies which was considered a bold and unconventional move among Speyside distilleries and production, As Speyside at the time was very traditionally against producing peaty whisky at this period as time as gone it has become a more common for some Speyside distilleries to produce peated whisky. 

As many distillerys the ownership changes hands fairly often and in 1985 a new owner fo Seagrams Spirits Co. had acquired BenRiach and set about increasing production so 2 more stills were installed bring the total upto 4 and doubling production. 

Interestingly BenRiach didn't release single malt whisky until 1994 when they rolled out their signature 10 year old, previously they had only been producing blended whisky up until this time. Since then have been a few change of owner but production has remained steady and continues to grow the distillery's  rich and unique whisky.