Springbank Distillery Hand Fill
NAS Infinity Hand Fill | 57.9% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Packed full of flavour
Journey To The Hallowed Ground Of Whisky Pt. 1
Will sailing into the heart of whisky geekdom live up to huge expectations?
The sun has just appeared from behind a darkened cloud and suddenly, without warning, I’m burning. I can feel it set in immediately and my skin is on fire. Perhaps it’s the six hours of salty water being sprayed in shocking bursts from all sides of the boat, or maybe it’s fatigue from setting off at 5am. Whatever the reason, I’m feeling a bit beaten. Soon the clouds have all but disappeared and, as we round the Davaar Point Lighthouse and look towards our destination, the weather has unexpectedly improved. As a consequence, so has my mood. I’ve been looking forward to this final leg of our week-long sailing trip since we first set off.
From a distance it's a quintessential Scottish seaside town. To the left we have a surprisingly high, soft rolling hill leading smoothly down to intersect the kaleidoscope of buildings dotting the horizon. The same hill swoops towards us directly into the sea where a causeway strings across to Davaar Island. Today the tide is low enough to reveal the rocky route joining these two lumps of rock; a lone dog walker treads tentatively along it – the pup has no such trouble. To our right, a less impressive but still lush landscape wraps around the headland and stretches northwards, along the turbulent Kintyre coastline. Arran is behind us, looming in the murk, and the sea is choppy as we swing the bow of the boat into the narrow channel leading to the town.
Our immediate focus is the impending frenzy of getting the sail down. It’s a procedure already completed many times on this trip but still demands a brief before each one so that everyone knows what they’re doing. Typically it includes a pivot into wind, allowing the sails to release their wind-tightened tension, then a frantic claw at the sail to bring it down quickly to the boom before it bellows with overpowering wind once more. There must be a better way to do this, other than clambering up on to a wet deck to manually haul the sails down. A pulley system anchored to the key points on the sail that could be operated from the cockpit, negating the need to risk falling overboard, might be an idea. If it’s windy enough to sail then it follows that the resulting weather makes it quite treacherous, being exposed on deck.
The sail is successfully pulled down and various marina fodder is propagated around the periphery of the boat (fenders and ropes). We chug slowly into the danger zone of the harbour, where expensive yachts and motorboats rest, bobbing up and down perpetually, many unloved and underused. The trepidation of manoeuvring a sailboat inside a marina is massive, especially if you’re on the helm. It’s very easy to have the wind, tide or many other influences dismantle any composure you had coming into the marina and things can get dicey quickly – and all under the scrutiny of other mariners, the harbour master, public and officials dotted around the place, overlooking your panic with zoomed cameras and dripping ice creams. I was tasked with bringing us into the marina once on our trip, the lovely wee place in Glenarm, County Antrim, and I managed it, but it wasn’t neat and certainly wasn’t elegant. More a slowly unfolding bump and flail. The harbour master proffered the sage advice of, “It’s far better to hit another boat at one knot, than it is to hit it at five.”
But I’m not at the helm today because of the two man team we have on this trip, there’s an infinitely more accomplished helmsman on board. So I’m the rope guy who jumps off at the last minute to tie up the boat tightly to terra firma. We squeeze into the small space between two larger boats without much effort and before long we’re tied up and welcomed by the harbour master. A quick chat about our trip so far, along with the various formalities of marinas (door codes, berthing fees and toilet keys) and we’re ready to get ourselves unfurled from our sailing clobber and refreshed with a trickling shower before heading out into the newly discovered world. We have officially arrived in the promised land of scotch whisky: Campbeltown.
“These are the people you never want to see, but love to watch them at work.”
There’s quite a lot of stigma surrounding Campbeltown, both from a whisky perspective and from a general point of view. When I mentioned my trip on the various platforms through which I broadcast, the sentiment was that of a tired old working harbour town – dilapidated, downtrodden and a bit deflated. The same sentiment seemed to be held by my uncle – the helmsman and sailboat owner – who had visited previously and thought it much the same, that it was a miserable old place that was in desperate need of a lick of paint and a smile or two. I had never been, so I was here with fresh eyes, albeit with the underlying expectation of it being a bit of a ghost town. The marina is really nice though, and there’s a bloody great big lifeboat stationed here. It’s magnificent and impressive – we would watch later that evening with pride and admiration as the crew assembled to train new recruits on Campbeltown Loch. When the two behemoth M94 power plants kicked in, igniting 3200hp of diesel power, everyone in a half-mile radius knew about it. These are the people you never want to see, but love to watch them at work.
My time in the shop, as well as my Cadenhead’s warehouse tasting, is for another time, but needless to say my announcement to Joyce, helming the shop, that Springbank wasn’t even on our agenda is met with incredulous eye widening. She convinced me enough (with a pretty unbreakable headlock, it has to be said) to wander up to the distillery and see if they have a tour slot available before our tasting at 11am. Leaving the shop I continued along Longrow, looking for the entrance to this most revered place.
Not Bad for a Tuesday
A small alley appears that leads up to the distillery. The Springbank Evangelical Church sits on one side, a dilapidated house on the other – not exactly the glowing reveal some might expect for such a renowned distillery, but then again this is one of the oldest, proudly dirtiest distilleries around. Why waste money on Johnnie Walker gilding and LED lighting when you can use that money instead to make more whisky? The shop entrance is on the gable end of the whitewashed building ahead and despite this being a sunny Thursday afternoon, there’s no-one else in the shop and a single chap patrols the till. He’s jovial and friendly, greeting my question of how he’s feeling today with, “Not bad for a Tuesday”. I say I expected to have to fight my way in here and he agrees that it’s unusually quiet, but that’s not a bad thing of late. The fever for Springbank is clearly taking its toll on the staff, and looking around the shelves I see there’s quite a few empty ones.
Over in the corner sits a mesh framework that is affectionately known as “the cage”. I’ve heard about this cage for a while, and it’s something I never really understood. This afternoon there are three bottles remaining inside the cage and they’re limited, quite rightly, to one cage bottle per person, per week. Beside this stands four large glass vials, demijohns much the same as inside Cadenhead’s shop, but these contain Springbank, Longrow, Hazelburn and Kilkerran. He offers me a sample of all them and my mouth waters as each passes my lips. This is beautiful stuff. These are living bottles, or as we punters call them, infinity bottles, but done on a larger scale. They’re filled routinely with whatever they have to hand, from young to old whisky, and there’s no record kept of what goes in – just that they’re restricted to each specific whisky.
By now other customers have drifted in and while they peruse, he asks if I’m booked on a tour and looks at his computer. I mention I’m on a Cadenhead’s warehouse tasting the following morning at 11am but that’s it. “Are you Dougie Crystal?,” he asks. I’m taken aback. Surely I can’t be this famous already and even then how would he know it’s me? I confirm I am indeed, but it turns out all the booking systems are linked and I haven’t yet connected the dots that the Cadenhead’s warehouse is nestled among the other Springbank warehouses. In fact, I didn’t know Cadenhead’s is owned by J&A Mitchell, the owners of Springbank, Glengyle and other brands. Luckily for me there’s a 10am Springbank slot available, so I vow to book online as soon as I’m back at the boat, and I purchase a bottle of both the Springbank and Kilkerran hand-fills. We spend the remainder of the evening being fed and re-hydrated in the Black Sheep before turning in early. It's going to be a busy day tomorrow, but before I head off, I quickly sample my Springbank hand-fill. I think, looking at my photograph of the four demijohns, that my hand-fill bottle of Springbank was from the previous batch. The colour of my bottle is akin to white wine, while the demijohn in the picture is a dark amber and is almost full. I wish I’d asked to get one filled there and then from that batch, as it’s the one I tasted and enjoyed, but I just assumed it was the same stuff. One to remember for future distillery shop visits. The first impression of the Springbank hand-fill is big, bold and creamy, so I vow to review it again when I’m home, for perspective.
Review
Springbank Infinity Bottle | Hand-Fill | NAS | NC | NCF | 57.9% ABV
£55 & always available at the distillery
Nose
Creamy oil paints, earthy, a little citrus. Smells like Springbank distillery – tropical damp and earthy. With a dash of water it reminds me very closely of the Lagavulin 8yo and it’s beautifully creamy with decadent smoke. A creme patissiere baked on a small bonfire.
Palate
Big creamy citrus blast. There’s almost a minty freshness, and for some reason it feels young – it has that bright sweet spirit flavour. A chalky aftertaste creeps in on the finish after a few beats. Grassy and vegetal. Oil paints and the delicious Springbank weirdness that I wish I could put a name on. Water adds a layer of freshness, a brighter note that meshes with the creaminess nicely.
The Dregs
The dregs follow in tomorrow’s part 2. Tune in tomorrow to read about our adventures in the land of whisky dreams.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
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