Ben Nevis Distillery
whisky distillery in Highland, Scotland, UK
Ben Nevis Distillery is a whisky distillery in Fort William, Scotland. It is situated at the base of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles, which rises to 1,345 m (4,413 ft) above sea level.
A coastal distillery in the Western Highlands, the distillery draws its water from the Allt a’Mhuilinn which originates from two pools on Ben Nevis, Coire Leis and Coire na’Ciste. Founded in 1825 as an independent enterprise, it has been owned by Nikka Whisky Distilling of Tokyo, Japan, since 1989.
History
The distillery was founded in 1825 by 'Long John' McDonald, a 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) descendant of a ruler of the western Scottish kingdom of Argyll (after whom the renowned blended Scotch, Long John, was named). After Long John's death in 1856, ownership was passed down to Donald McDonald, his son.
A second distillery was sited nearby in 1878 and named Nevis Distillery. In a bid to keep up with growing demand, the two distilleries eventually became one in the early twentieth century.
In 1955 the distillery was taken over by new proprietors led by Joseph Hobbs. Under Hobbs, the distillery began using continuous distillation, installing a Coffey Still which remained on the site until 1981 and made the distillery one of the first to produce both malt and grain whisky simultaneously.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q816571. VIAF identifies the subject as 145150746895016300125. Authority coordinates are 56.835, -5.074. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1825, 1989, 1856 and 1878.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ben Nevis Distillery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.