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Campbeltown's Distilleries

Campbeltown is the capital of the peninsula Kintyre. More than 2 hours are needed by car until you reach the remote peninsula between the island of Islay and the mainland. It’s worth the way. Ferries start from Tabert toward Islay.

If you are on the way to Islay, you should definitely make a quick trip to Campbeltown and visit the distillery Springbank. It belongs to the few distilleries in which you can still see real manual work and they even produce a part of their barley themselves.

At present only the distilleries Springbank and Glen Scotia in Campbeltown produce Malt Whisky. Springbank has been working regularly since 1989; Glen Scotia has been several times close to its end. Nevertheless the capital of the peninsula Kintyre formerly was a center of whisky production. Nearly 30 distilleries were producing winsky in the year 1825.

Number of producing distilleries in Campbeltown

Because of the world economic’s crisis in the 30's of the past century many of the distilleries had to close. The number suddenly decreased from 20 to 3 and finally to 2. As know today, only Springbank and Glen Scotia survived.

But it is becoming better again. Springbank revived the old name Longrow and is manufacturing using this name an extremely peaty, aromatic whisky. Even if the old Longrow distillery was already closed in the year 1896, today Longrow stands for a completely independent Malt.

In December 2000 the Mitchell's, the owners of Springbank, bought the old buildings of the Glengyle distillery, which had to close in the year 1925. A complete renovation is under its way and a restart is planned in the year 2004.

All data was compiled from the following books:

• 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

All data was collected by Alex Kraaijeveld. The distillery map of Campbeltown was published in the Internet whisky journal "Celtic Spirit" on the http://www.celticmalts.com site. The visualisation was done by The Whisky Store.