Balvenie maltings

I was very fortunate to be given a guided 'behind the scenes' tour today at the Glenfiddich and Balvenie distilleries.

The tours, which were enlightening, were purely for training purposes and so did not involve any tasting!

The Balvenie malts its own barley, a rare practise amongst distilleries. The barley is steeped in water before being laid out on the floor for 5 days to partially dry before being smoked by an anthracite and peat fire until it has a 4% moisture content.