Ben Nevis

Region: Highland, Scotland

Year Built: 1825

Ben Nevis Distillery, founded in 1825 by John “Long John” MacDonald near Fort William at the foot of Ben Nevis mountain, is one of Scotland’s oldest licensed distilleries. It gained early success, even building a second nearby distillery in 1878, though that closed in 1908. The distillery was owned by Canadian entrepreneur Joseph Hobbs from 1941, who introduced continuous distillation and produced both malt and grain whisky on site. After periods of closure and ownership changes, it was acquired by Japanese company Nikka in 1989. Ben Nevis is known for traditional production methods including wooden washbacks and brewer’s yeast, producing rich, well-matured single malts often aged in sherry casks.