Balmenach Distillery is nestled in the Spey Valley at the bottom of the Haughs of Cromdale. It was in these hills on the last day of April 1690 that dragoon guards ambushed an army of Jacobite soldiers, and this defeat effectively ended the Jacobite rising in the Highlands.

The distillery was established in the early 1800s by the McGregor family, and it changed hands in 1922 when it became part of a company that would become Distillers Company Limited (DCL). In 1993, the distillery was mothballed until 1998, when Inver House Distillers bought it. In 2001, Thai company Pacific Spirits took over Inver House, and in 2006, International Beverage Holdings acquired the UK arm, including Balmenach.

The signature style is full-bodied, robust, herbal, savoury (ginger, oranges, pepper) with hints of smoke. In the last couple of years, sustainability has been a key focus, with efforts to reduce the distillery's carbon footprint. Investments include an anaerobic digestion plant to break down waste from the production process and a wood-pellet biomass boiler, which generates steam for the distillery. Official Balmenach bottlings are rare, though the whisky is also released under Deerstalker.

(Adapted from the Malt Whisky Yearbook 2024)