Just as Ceres uses humble paper as her medium, at The Balvenie, we still grow our own barley for malting. Each year we sow barley on our thousand-acre farm, Balvenie Mains, overlooking the distillery. The only modern technology we use is a combine harvester when the crop is ripe for harvesting.

The Balvenie operates a traditional working floor maltings. After steeping the barley in spring water sourced from hills above the distillery, we spread the grain across our traditional malting floor. Ceres crafts everything by hand, as do our malt men. They turn the maltings by hand until the malted barley is ready for the kiln.

Our stills are our canvas. They have varied very little from when the distillery first opened. They maintain the same ‘Balvenie Ball’ shape, with a bulge or boil ball at the base of the swan's neck – a feature replicated in the neck of The Balvenie bottle. This allows the vapours more time to mix before they carry on up to the head.

True craftsmanship, whether for an artist or whisky maker, takes time to develop properly. Our coopers repair, rebuild, fill and seal whisky casks all day, all year. An apprenticeship takes four years, but the learning doesn’t stop there: it takes more years of experience to keep everything ‘wind and watertight’ every time.

No one knows whisky like David C. Stewart MBE. He started work at The Balvenie distillery in 1962 at the age of just 17. During a 12-year apprenticeship, he mastered the complex skills required to create the very finest single malt whisky. David’s devotion to and finely developed understanding of the whisky-making process is what inspired Ceres’ creations.