Campbeltown Malts Festival 2017

The Campbeltown Malts Festival is a three-day celebration of Campbeltown’s Whiskies – Springbank, Glengyle and Glen Scotia. This year’s dates are 24th-26th May, make sure these dates are in your diary.

This year Nicola and I will be visiting all three distilleries and can’t wait to see the line up at Glen Scotia, which promises to be bigger and better than last year. Last year was my first visit to this festival and of all the distilleries / events / tasting’s I had, Glen Scotia gave me some of my biggest surprises.

Nicola and I had a fantastic warehouse tasting from Iain McAlister (Glen Scotia’s distillery manager) where we were taken through their range of expressions and the tasting of some outstanding drams straight from the cask. I enjoyed Iain’s knowledge and enthusiasm for “his” distillery and its Whiskies.

I also loved their shop / visitor centre a very Victorian feel with very helpful staff (Calum) and you can even fill your own bottle.

My biggest surprise was the Glen Scotia Double Cask a typical Campbeltown malt which was finished in American oak and Pedro Ximinez sherry casks and bottled at 46% Alc/vol. I just loved the richness of the sherry and smoothness of the sweet vanilla smoke, it certainly was my dram of the festival. Since then it is a regular on the Whisky Boys Slab. The Slab is a wooden stand that the Whisky Boys keep our current favourites for our consumption only. (selfish we can be)

Let May the 24th come soon, hoping to once again find some gems and meet old friends and make some new ones.

If you see Nicola or I, please come up and say hello, you never know what we might have in our hip flasks.