Benromach

Benromach Distillery was built in 1898, the year of the great distillery boom. Alexander Edward of Sanquhar, a well-known promoter of new distilleries granted a feu charter to the Benromach Distillery Company for a plot of his land, north of the railway junction in Forres. The company comprised of two individuals, Mr McCallum, the owner of Glen Nevis Distillery in Campbeltown and Brickman, a spirit broker from Leith. Mr Charles Doig, an architect from Elgin, was in charge of the design for the new distillery. Over the next 50 years the distillery changed hands several time before coming under the ownership of Scottish Malt Distillers. It operated for another 30 years until it was one of the many distilleries closed in the early 1980s. In 1993 Gordon & MacPhail purchased the site and in 1997 work began on re-equipping the distillery with production equipment. This included two new stills, a new mash tun and wash backs which had been ‘reworked’ from the originals. The first spirit ran off the stills in the Autumn of Benromach’s Centenary Year, 1998. The distillery was officially re-opened by HRH The Prince of Wales.