Campbeltown's distilleries
Campbeltown is the capital of the Kintyre Peninsula. It takes more than 2 hours by car to reach the remote peninsula between the island of Islay and the mainland. But the journey is not in vain. Ferries depart from Tabert in the direction of Islay.
If you are on your way to Islay, you should definitely make a detour to Campbeltown and visit the Springbank distillery. It is one of the few distilleries where you can still see real manual work and which also produces some of its own malt.
Currently, only the distilleries Springbank, Glengyle and Glen Scotia produce malt whisky in Campbeltown. Springbank has been operating regularly for 10 years; Glen Scotia has been on the verge of closure many times. The capital of the Kintyre Peninsula was once a centre of whisky production. Almost 30 distilleries were producing in 1825.
With the world economic crisis in the 1930s, many of the distilleries had to close. The number dropped abruptly from 20 to 3 and finally to 2. As we know today, only Springbank and Glen Scotia survived.
But things are getting better again. Springbank has revived the old name Longrow and produces an extremely smoky, aromatic whisky under this brand. Even though the old Longrow distillery was already closed in 1896, Longrow today stands for a completely independent malt.
In December 2000, the Mitchells, the owners of Springbank, bought the old buildings of the Glengyle distillery, which also had to close in 1925. After a complete renovation, the distillery began producing Kilkerran single malt in 2004.
The data compiled here is taken from:
- Duncan Colville's List of Distilleries in Campbeltown, erected since 1817.
- Norman Newton's Campbeltown's Distilleries
- Brian Townsend's Scotch Missed
- Charles Craig's Scotch Whisky Industry Record
The data was compiled by Alex Kraaijeveld from England. The distillery map of Campbeltown was published in the Internet Whisky Journal "Celtic Spirit". The visualisation was done by Whisky.de.
