Springbank 10 yo, 100 proof
Campbeltown Single Malt Whisky
57% abv
£35
Springbank is the one of the 'last men standing' from the heyday of Campbeltown distilling. "The Whisky City" was employing 250 people in the whisky industry and pumping out nearly 2million gallons of whisky per year when Alfred Barnard visited in 1887.
Founded in 1828 and taken over by the Mitchell family in 1837, Springbank is still a family-run distillery making it the oldest continuously family-run distillery in Scotland. The region became known for 'stinking fish' whisky and most of the distilleries went out of business by the 1930s. Glen Scotia and Springbank survived... barely. Springbank has the reputation of producing one of the world's best single malts, no matter what grumblings were being passed about over the past 5 years. It isn't a whisky that suits everyone's tastes, but those who like it like it a lot. And when it's 'on', it can be heavenly.
Springbank is still run in a very unique way (more on this later in the week). Michael Jackson writes, "without a hierarchy of marketing policy makers, the three or four people who run the business on a daily basis taste regularly and bottle what they think is good and ready." Sounds like a good system to me.
This Springbank 100 proof(British proof) version was launched in 2004. It won Loch Fyne Whiskies' Bottling of the Year 2004. Good morning, Sunshine!
TASTING NOTES:
Light and fresh. Sweet lemony maltiness, slightly sour. Salt and a sunflower seed sort of nuttiness. Musty oak and rich toffee. Complex.
Gentle impact with a big follow-up of salt and spice, cloves and fresh raw fish. A vanilla and toffee character too that rides into an ever lasting cod liver oil-meets-musty oakiness.
SUMMARY:
Great maturity for the age that hides the potential pain of the abv. Fresh and appetising. Rides a bit close to the sea for my tastes, but I am a wimp. If I take a cod liver oil pill I taste it all day. Satisfying and complex, but a definite mood whisky.
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