Kininvie

kininvie-distillery
  • Founded: 1990
  • Status: Operational
  • Region: Speyside, Scotland.
  • Online: n/a
kininvie-17-year-old-1996-whisky

History The Kininvie Distillery, one of the youngest distilleries in Scotland, began production on 4 July 1990. The distillery was built on the grounds of the Balvenie distillery, and consisted only of a still house. Whilst featuring computer controlled distillation, it lacks its own mash house. Mash houses are responsible for producing the liquid needed for fermentation in the washbacks, so the liquid used by the Kininvie Distillery in their washbacks was piped from the Balvenie distillery some 200 metres away. The distillery operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to meet demand. Almost all of its whisky was used in the blended whiskies of William Grant & Sons.

The distillery has, to date, released only two single malt whiskies, the first a limited edition bottling called Hazelwood 105, which was bottled aged 15 years., the second being the Hazelwood Reserve released for the 107th birthday of Janet Sheed Roberts as a 17-year-old. The output from the Kininvie Distillery is normally used in William Grant & Sons blended whiskies, primarily the Clan MacGregor blended whisky, a typical blended whisky featuring a high percentage of grain whisky mixed with the single malt from the Kininvie Distillery. William Grant & Sons, in 2005, introduced a premium blended malt whisky called Monkey Shoulder, which is created from a mixture of single malt from Kininvie, together with single malts from the Balvenie and Glenfiddich distilleries, both of which are owned by William Grant & Sons.

The Whiskyphiles tasting notes

Official BottlinG
  • Kininvie KVSM001 Kininvie 5 Years Old 2013 Single Malt (2019) - Kininvie KVSM001single malt whisky review: Initially I found this far too light and thin and didn't favour the off citrus notes and spice. On revisit, and having breathed a little, this had smoothed a little around the edges, more sweetness and less acridity was apparent. I can't see myself drinking a lot of this neat / with water as single malt should in my mind be able to be consumed. 68/100
  • Kininvie 17yo 1996 batch 1 Kininvie 17 Years Old 1996 Batch 1 (2016) - Like Monkey Shoulder with the good bits taken out, there is something really quite disappointing about this expression and I think it is complete lack of character. Even the attempted cask maturation to create balance has just rendered this a little beige. Still nice to try an offering from a distillery we haven't previously sampled. 61/100
  • Kininvie KVSG002 Kininvie 3 Years Old 2015 Rye (2019) - Kininvie KVSG002 single grain scotch whisky review: A much better whisky than the single malt, this Rye has plenty of flavour from the cereals as well as virgin oak casks to aid maturation. Remarkable that this is only 3 years old as it feels and tastes much more mature than this. (Spoiler alert) this was my favourite of the three initial releases. 82/100
  • Kininvie KVSB003 Kininvie 3 Years Old Blend (2019) - Kininvie KVSB003 blended scotch whisky review: Better than the single malt but not as good as the single grain.. There was still far too much of the weirdly fake/plastic lemon citrus flavour and way too much spice in the spirit which I suspect derives more from the single malt than the single grain component. I likely won't be drinking much more of this one straight either. 75/100
Independent Bottling