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01 July 2009
The curious case of Campbeltown
By
Richard Goslan
Join Unfiltered as we explore the fascinating location, history and mindset of a small town with a big reputation in the whisky world
It’s nearly 9am on a fresh spring morning in Campbeltown and Springbank’s sales and marketing executive Peter Currie is swapping his wetsuit for his business suit. Fresh from the surf at nearby Machrihanish, he leans his surfboard against the distillery wall as workers roll barrels of whisky to the warehouse. “It’s the best spot for surfing on the west coast and clears my head in the morning,” he says.
It’s certainly an unorthodox way to start the day. But that’s very much in keeping with how different things are in this remote town at the foot of the Kintyre peninsula.
Campbeltown is a curious kind of place, with a curious story to tell. Although it’s only about 60 miles from Glasgow as the crow flies, the drive there takes at least three hours around the top of Loch Fyne, before winding its way down the peninsula. It feels incredibly isolated and yet if you draw a line across a map of Scotland, you will find that it is roughly on the same latitude as Hawick in the Borders.
As we approach our destination, there’s another reminder that this is a journey into a slightly offbeat location when we pass a road sign that tells you it is “30 ODD miles to Campbeltown”. That’s not just odd as in “approximately” – it’s also a marketing acronym for Springbank, which stands for “original, distinct, defiant”.
The unusual marketing mantra came about last year when Springbank announced that it was shutting down production. That move was described at the time by a fellow distiller as “an odd decision by a very odd bunch of people”. The people at Springbank took it as a compliment and used it to their own benefit.
When we finally arrive in Campbeltown, it feels as though we’ve made it onto an island without a ferry service. There’s only one way out. And it’s a long way back up the same road.
Times have changed a great deal in Campbeltown in the past century or so, and not always for the better. When whisky historian Alfred Barnard visited in 1885, on the tour which led to the publication of his epic book The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom, he had the option of taking a steamer from Glasgow, but was put off by the thought that it would be crowded with “women and children tumbling about in all directions”.
Instead, he took a boat from Greenock to the port of Tarbert. From there, it was a further six-hour journey by horse-drawn coach to Campbeltown. But the effort was worth it. Barnard was visiting what he called “Whisky City”.
At that time, the area had 21 working distilleries, which Barnard took two weeks to tour. His base, the White Hart Hotel, is still in business, but nowadays you won’t need more than an afternoon to visit the surviving distilleries.
A combination of factors including the First World War, lack of manpower, industry consolidation, growing markets in regions such as Speyside and changing tastes saw the area’s whisky boom turn to bust. From the early 19th century until the 1920s, Campbeltown saw an astonishing growth in distilling, followed by an equally dramatic decline. Between 1920 and 1928, for example, 18 distilleries closed down.
“This was the whisky capital not only of Scotland but of the whole world,” reflects Frank McHardy, director of production for J&A Mitchell, the family-run company that has owned Springbank since it was founded in 1828.
“But the distilleries at that time were asked to make more and more and more spirit, which they did, and they took lots of shortcuts. They made it very quickly and they ending up making very bad spirit.
“If you run spirit stills too quickly, you carry over congeners and stuff from the actual distillation you don’t want, and it becomes very fishy in smell and taste. These guys were accused of maturing the spirit in herring barrels because it tasted and smelt so fishy. Eventually the industry here collapsed, through prohibition in the United States as well, but its reputation was shot to hell.”
Since 1934, only Springbank and Glen Scotia have survived in Campbeltown, making the former whisky capital of the world more like a curious footnote in the industry’s history.
Along with the downturn in fishing and mining, the demise of distilling has left the town with a lack of industry, and it has continued to take knocks with the more recent closure of the local shipyard, followed by clothing manufacturer Jaeger shutting down its factory in 2001. The decision to close the RAF base at Machrihanish also affected the town. Now many of its economic hopes are pinned on the fortunes of the Danish-owned Vestas wind turbine factory.But it is the town’s heritage that continues to draw whisky connoisseurs from around the world, with Springbank in particular enjoying a cult following.
While we were there, Anders Norlander and four friends were visiting from Sweden, having made the journey specifically to see Springbank. They gazed on the distillery’s three stills with the same kind of awe you might find on a surfer’s face when they make a pilgrimage to Hawaii.
Peter Currie says he finds many of the same values in Springbank as he does in surfing. “Surfing is a very traditional sport in its most original form – it was the sport of Hawaiian kings. But there is also the kind of ‘alternative’ aspect to it and I think Springbank embodies both of those things.
“It is very much a traditional distillery, being the only one in Scotland which carries out the whole process of turning barley into bottles of whisky on the same site, and which has also been owned by the same family since 1828. But at the same time it’s not been afraid to try different things and break the mould of what most folk would consider normal.”
As for the “odd” comments and the subsequent marketing campaign, Currie says: “We are an odd distillery. I don’t think anybody would ever deny that. It is odd to do all your own malting, it is odd to do all your own bottling, it is odd to bottle at 46 per cent, it is odd not to chill filter… but it seems to be odd things which other people are copying.”
Frank McHardy might prefer a round of golf on the classic links course at Machrihanish to anything involving a wetsuit, but he’s inclined to agree with his younger colleague about the distillery’s status.
“We tend to do things our own way here,” he says, “and cock a snoop at the rest of the people in the industry, or the ones who purport to run the industry. We like to keep ourselves totally independent.”
This year, Campbeltown is producing a new whisky for the first time in almost 100 years. In May, the first bottlings from Glengyle, a disused distillery brought back to life by J&A Mitchell, came on the market as a five-year-old “work in progress” single malt called Kilkerran.
Glengyle was last operated by current Springbank owner Hedley Wright’s great great great uncle, until it shut down in 1925. “The thinking behind reopening Glengyle was that it brought it back into the family,” says McHardy. “Our chairman perceived a need for the industry to expand slightly in Campbeltown, to give us another arm without having to operate Springbank 24-hours a day. We can keep it as a small, niche-type brand and have Glengyle as well to add to the portfolio.”
Kilkerran joins the company’s Longrow, an Islay-style single malt made with heavily-peated malted barley, and Hazelburn, which is triple distilled and has more of a traditional Lowlands or Irish style.
Production is back at a low level after being stopped last year, to keep stocks at a level that Springbank is comfortable with. The “odd” decision has proven to be the right one, but Currie says: “We did it for our own reasons – not because we knew the global economy was about to collapse.”
But there is more to Campbeltown than Springbank, though visitors – or even locals – might not know it. Glen Scotia is only a few minutes’ walk from Springbank. From the outside, it looks like it already belongs to the town’s history of discontinued distillers. But, in fact, it’s quietly producing up to 150,000 litres of spirit a year, most of which is used by parent company Loch Lomond in its range of blends. A small amount is bottled as Glen Scotia 12-year old single malt.
Distillery manager Iain McAlister is one of only three staff at Scotia who keep operations running, despite his lack of experience in the distilling industry. “I’ve had a steep learning curve,” admits the 41-year-old, who only took on the job last year. “The previous manager was here for about two months and then after that I was on my own. But it’s been going okay. I’ve had some old hands to keep me right.”
McAlister acknowledges the need for a lick of paint to make the distillery look a little less run down, but its appearance doesn’t stop enthusiasts including it on their pilgrimage down the peninsula.
Nowadays you’re as likely to see kids strolling through Campbeltown with surfboards under their arms as groups of whisky tourists from Scandinavia or Japan. Whatever their passion, they are willing to come a long way to indulge it. They are all in pursuit of a rush to the senses provoked by something extraordinary. Whether that comes from finding the perfect dram, or the perfect wave, is a matter
of preference.
Only on the Mull of Kintyre do you have the chance of discovering both.
The spirit of survival
The rusty gates at Glen Scotia have seen better days, and are due to be replaced any day now.
As a boy, Jim Grogan would run in and out of the distillery when the gates were made of wood, to bring his father’s dinner up to him.
“I would duck down through a wee hatch to come through with my father’s food,” says Jim, one of the three employees at Glen Scotia. “We were always in and out of the distilleries as kids. We grew up with the industry.”
Jim’s father Harry worked his entire life in distilling and, after he left school, Jim followed suit. He’s now almost 63 and looking ahead to hanging up his valinch. It has never been a labour of love for this stillman – like Glen Scotia itself, it has been more a story of survival.
“My father’s generation saw the demise of the industry from the time when there were more than 32 distilleries,” he says.
“It was the main source of employment, along with fishing and the coalmine. But it’s almost all gone.
“The old timers were always speaking about it. They could move from one distillery to another, they were never out of a job.”
It’s been a different story for Jim’s generation.
“I’ve been made redundant in this industry four or five times,” he says. “But you just move on to something else and then you come back when production starts again.”
And at least under Loch Lomond’s ownership, Glen Scotia’s future looks secure.
Timeline ~ charting the ups and downs of Campbeltown and the Kintyre peninsula
1591 First written reference to whisky in the area
Early 1600s Town named Campbeltown by Earl of Argyll, chief of the Campbells
1700 Campbeltown named as royal burgh
1823 Distilling legalised
1828 Springbank distillery is founded by Archibald Mitchell
1832 Glen Scotia founded
1885 21 distilleries active
1920s Distilleries go into decline and most shut down
1934 Rieclachan closes, leaving just Springbank and Glen Scotia in production
1977 Paul McCartney’s song Mull of Kintyre reaches number one
2001 Jaeger factory closes
2004 Glengyle distillery reopens
2009 New links golf course called Machrihanish Dunes opens
2009 First bottlings of Kilkerran from Glengyle distillery available
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