BenRiach was built in 1898 by John Duff, next to his other distillery, Longmorn, just south of Elgin in Speyside. Its opening coincided almost exactly with the collapse of Pattisons Ltd, a major whisky broker whose failure in 1900 wrecked demand across the industry, and BenRiach was mothballed within two years of starting up, with only its floor maltings kept working. It did not distil again until 1965, when Glenlivet Distillers reopened it.
The site passed through several corporate owners over the following decades and was mothballed again in 2002, before an independent consortium led by Billy Walker bought it in 2004 and rebuilt its reputation, distilling in classic, peated and triple-distilled styles side by side. Brown-Forman, the American drinks group, bought BenRiach for £281 million in 2016 and still owns it, with Dr Rachel Barrie as master blender.