Campbeltown Malt Whisky
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Only three distilleries continue to produce whisky in Campbeltown: Springbank, Glengyle, and Glen Scotia.
The Springbank Distillery, however, produces three distinct whiskies; Springbank, Hazelburn, and Longrow. Glengyle Distillery has only recently been revived and will not see a whisky bottled until around 2014, which will be sold under the name Kilkerran to avoid any confusion with the Highland vatted malt named Glengyle.
Though for some time Campbeltown lost its status as a recognized region, despite its dearth of active distilleries, it has once again been granted "regional status" by the Scotch Whisky Association.
Campbeltown could at one time claim to have the greatest number of distilleries in the smallest area possible – around 30 right up to the time of the Wall Street Crash. Now, as mentioned above, there are 5, with 3 under the same roof-space; Springbank, Longrow and Hazelburn. Such is the wonderful and magical complexity of Malt Whisky, these three Single Malts, all sharing at least one still, are completely different. Springbank on the whole being regal and rich with cognac-raisins and coconut and banana notes; Longrow (distilled for the first time since the 19th Century in 1973) powerful and peaty; Hazelburn also powerful but in a more muted way with less of the smoke and peat and more of the barley and rich breads.
I used to consider Springbank my favourite all-time distillery, especially because of the superlative 21 year old! It might have lost its way slightly but thankfully is now well on the road to recovery.
It has been suggested that the demise of most of the Campbeltown distilleries was due to greed and lowering of standards.
Apparently during prohibition some unscrupulous distillers were using any old barrels, including old herring barrels in which to mature their spirit. Being the westernmost port and thus nearer to American, Campbeltown distillers could get their product to the thirsty American market ahead of their competitors. However, with the repeal of prohibition, there was a backlash against the Whisky from here because of its poor quality, and thus this backlash accelerated its demise. (A little footnote: some time ago a very astute German Whisky dealer got some old herring barrels, God knows where from, and replicated the old stuff, calling it Fishky! It was a huge success but I don’t think he has repeated the exercise!)
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