The Kininvie single malt whisky distillery was built in 1990 by owners William Grant & Sons around the corner from sister distillery Balvenie in Speyside. Kininvie's role is to relieve pressure on William Grant’s successful single malt distilleries, Glenfiddich and Balvenie, by supplying bulk Speyside single malt whisky for the company’s popular blended Scotch brands, which include Grant’s, Clan MacGregor and later the blended malt Monkey Shoulder. 

Kininvie uses three large wash stills and six spirit stills, and fills its spirit mostly into bourbon casks. Unusually, Kininvie’s barley is mashed and fermented at Balvenie, where it has its own dedicated mash tun and washbacks. Fermentation times are relatively long at a minimum of 75 hours and the wash is then piped to Kininvie for distillation, leading some critics to argue that Kininvie is actually just an extension of Balvenie. Kininvie’s output is around 4 million litres per year.