{"id":1616,"date":"2015-08-04T21:27:17","date_gmt":"2015-08-05T02:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/?p=1616"},"modified":"2015-08-06T10:45:30","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T15:45:30","slug":"campbeltown-tasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/2015\/08\/campbeltown-tasting\/","title":{"rendered":"Campbeltown Tasting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Springbank\"<\/a>Trinity Hall hosted a tasting of Campbeltown whisky with offerings from Springbank (Springbank,\u00a0Hazelburn and Longrow) and Glengyle (Kilkerran) distilleries. \u00a0Here’s the rundown:<\/p>\n

Hazelburn 12 Year Old Single Malt ($90)<\/strong>\u00a0– The Hazelburn brand is for the\u00a0non-peated offerings from the Springbank distillery. \u00a0Aromas of\u00a0cereal, vanilla and plum, with similar tastes of cereal, vanilla, red delicious apple and pear. \u00a0Also, notes of white grape, ginger, white pepper, black pepper and green pepper. The finish is\u00a0mild leathery wood and mild pepper. \u00a0A solid whisky, but overpriced.<\/p>\n

Kilkerran Work-in-Progress\u00a0#6 Sherry Wood Single Malt\u00a0($60)<\/strong>– This is a 10 Year Old work-in-progress offering from Glengyle distillery, which will culminate in a 12 Year Old offering in 2016. \u00a0A fruity nose of\u00a0cherry and plum with cereal and vanilla that precedes similar tastes of\u00a0mild peat, plum, cherry, apple and cereal\u00a0along with spices of\u00a0ginger, white pepper, black pepper\u00a0and a\u00a0mild barnyard note. The finish is\u00a0peppery and leathery with notes of vanilla, charred oak and bitter honey. \u00a0Another good whisky that shows promise for the eventual production offering, but I think I’ll wait for the final product.<\/p>\n

Springbank 10 Year Old Single Malt ($50)<\/strong> \u00a0– Springbank offerings are mildly peated and this one is matured for 10 years in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. \u00a0The nose brings\u00a0cereal, mild peat, apple and pear, while the palate senses cereal, vanilla, ginger, apple, pear, nutmeg and honey\u00a0before a\u00a0spicy and leathery finish. Springbanks youngest age-stated whisky is\u00a0well balanced and offers a rounded flavor with mild peat. \u00a0I highly recommend it as an introduction to the Campbeltown style of Scotch whisky.<\/p>\n

Springbank Green 12 Year Old Single Malt ($95)<\/strong> – This is an atypical Springbank offering with lightly fruity nose (mostly pear and apple) amidst a bit of smoke, vanilla and honey. I taste\u00a0white grape, peach, pear, mild peat, ginger, honey, pepper, cigar box\u00a0and detect a\u00a0spicy, fruity, leathery and long finish with lingering light fruity notes. Each drop of water seemed to reveal new flavors, indicating a complex whisky that needs more exploration. \u00a0I’m glad that I have a bottle of this at home and would recommend it over the Hazelburn 12 Year Old if you can handle a bit of peat.<\/p>\n

Springbank 18 Year Old Single Malt ($140)<\/strong> – An inviting nose of cereal, vanilla, plum, apple and cherry precede a palate of cereal, vanilla, plum, cherry, pear, apple, ginger and cigar box\u00a0followed by a finish of\u00a0charred oak and leather with spice and dried fruit. Lots of flavor here and a long finish with\u00a0great balance across the board. \u00a0This is just as good as I remember and an exciting whiskey that I highly recommend even at the moderately price premium.<\/p>\n

Springbank 17 Year Old Single Cask Fresh Sherry Single Malt 1997 ($160)\u00a0<\/strong>– A rare Springbank offering with a fantastic nose of raisin, plum, molasses, cereal and a mild farminess and an equally fantastic montage on the palate\u00a0of\u00a0plum, raisin, ginger, pepper and almond. Other notes of tropical fruits and nuts. \u00a0It’s a\u00a0bold whisky with great balance and lots of flavor that develops will with the addition of water. \u00a0Easily the winner of the night and an outstanding whisky! \u00a0I hope I can find a bottle!<\/p>\n

Longrow 18 Year Old Single Malt ($180)<\/strong> – Essentially, a peated Springbank 18 Year Old, the nose is peaty with nuts, cherries, raisins and plums. The taste is mildly\u00a0farmy with honey, mild smoke, tobacco, raisin and plum developing into an oily, farmy, briny, fruity and very long finish. \u00a0It’s good, but not great and probably my greatest disappointment of the night as I was expecting much more.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, everyone at our table took turns buying mystery whiskies for each\u00a0to take a guess at. \u00a0Here’s what we tried: \u00a0Bruichladdich Port Charlotte\u00a0Islay Barley, Compass Box\u00a0The Peat Monster,\u00a0Ardbeg Galileo,\u00a0Bowmore 15 Year Old,\u00a0Lagavulin 16 Year Old,\u00a0Glenfarclas \u00a017 Year Old,\u00a0Isle of Jura 16 Year Old and\u00a0Ardbeg Corryvrecken. \u00a0All of them were good and there were only 2 correct guesses, although it was fun making an attempt to hone in on the answer and we learned a lot in the process. \u00a0In fact, our group decided to do a formal blind single malt tasting at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trinity Hall hosted a tasting of Campbeltown whisky with offerings from Springbank (Springbank,\u00a0Hazelburn and Longrow) and Glengyle (Kilkerran) distilleries. \u00a0Here’s the rundown: Hazelburn 12 Year Old Single Malt ($90)\u00a0– The Hazelburn brand is for the\u00a0non-peated offerings from the Springbank distillery. \u00a0Aromas of\u00a0cereal, vanilla and plum, with similar tastes of cereal, vanilla, red delicious apple and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[30,67,66,52,59,35,202,19,20,204,203,18,100],"class_list":["post-1616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whiskey","tag-ardbeg","tag-bowmore","tag-bruichladdich","tag-campbeltown","tag-compass-box","tag-glenfarclas","tag-glengyle","tag-islands","tag-islay","tag-jura","tag-lagavulin","tag-speyside","tag-springbank"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p364aH-q4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1616"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1624,"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions\/1624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mark.abear.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}