Springbank Distillery

Spring­bank is one of only two dis­til­leries in Scot­land to per­form every step in the whisky mak­ing process, from malt­ing the bar­ley to bot­tling the spirit, on same premises: the other is Kil­choman Dis­tillery who also grow their own bar­ley. While a few oth­ers still main­tain the first step in the process, the malt­ing of bar­ley (which is becom­ing more rare), Spring­bank also bot­tles their own whisky. The dis­tillery is also one of the most inac­tive, hav­ing stills oper­at­ing less than a third of the time.

Own­er­ship

Spring­bank is one of the few remain­ing fam­ily owned dis­til­leries. Per­haps it is for this rea­son that nearly all of its whisky is sold as a sin­gle malt, with lit­tle of it find­ing its way into blends. Most blends are pro­duced by larger con­glom­er­ates who tend to use the sin­gle malts from the dis­til­leries that they own in their blends. Spring­bank pro­duces two of its own blends, 5 year old Camp­bel­town Loch, and Mitchell’s 12 year old.

Brands

Spring­bank Sin­gle Malt is the most pop­u­lar vari­ety. Its stan­dard bot­tling is a 10 year old, dis­tilled two and a half times, and is not chill-filtered, nor does it have colour added. Dis­till­ing whisky two and a half times is quite unusual, as it means that dur­ing the dis­til­la­tion process some of the low wines are col­lected before the sec­ond dis­til­la­tion, and then mixed back into the feints for another dis­til­la­tion. This means that some parts of the spirit has been through dis­til­la­tion twice and some parts three times. The spirit is then aged in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks, although Spring­bank is exper­i­ment­ing with rum casks as well. The stan­dard 10 year old bot­tling is avail­able at 46% vol­ume, but a 100° proof bot­tling (at 57% vol­ume) is also avail­able. They also pro­duce a some­what darker 15 year old. A 21 year old vari­ety of Spring­bank exists, but is increas­ingly rare.

Lon­grow Sin­gle Malt is a highly peaty whisky. The stan­dard Lon­grow is also a ten year old, matured in ex-bourbon casks, while a Sher­ry­wood 10 year old is also avail­able. There is also an exper­i­men­tal tokaji-cask edi­tion available.

Hazel­burn Sin­gle Malt, the newest vari­ety, was first dis­tilled in 1997 and since bot­tled as an 8-year-old. Hazel­burn is a triple dis­tilled, non-peated whisky, named for another now-defunct Camp­bel­town distillery.