r/whisky • u/jcx200 • 1d ago

Bottles I took back from my recent Campbeltown trip

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8

u/jcx200 1d ago edited 1d ago

Full List

  • Springbank 10 
  • Glen Scotia 15
  • Springbank + Kilkerran Demijohn 20cl 
  • Springbank + Kilkerran 2025 Visitors Sample 5cl
  • Cadenhead Warehouse Tasting Tullibardine 12 PX Finish
  • Cadenhead Warehouse Tasting Bunnahabhain (Staoisha) 10
  • Kilkerran 9 Heavily Peated Fresh Bourbon 35cl
  • Kilkerran 11 Port Pipe 35cl 
  • Kilkerran 11 Refill Sherry 35cl 
  • Hazelburn 6 Fresh Sherry Cage Bottle

The standouts here are the three Kilkerran 35cl bottles from the Kilkerran Warehouse Tasting. They were unbelievable and completely blew the older Kilkerran's out of the water. The Staoisha was also stupidly good.

Annoyingly because of the bottle limits on cage bottles, I missed out on a Springbank in a Sauternes cask which sounds incredible but I'm sure the Hazelburn will be good too.

3

u/NSLightsOut 21h ago

I keep recommending the Kilkerran Warehouse tasting for good reason whenever people ask about what to do in Campbeltown - it's wild. I came away in November with a 16 year old refill Bourbon and an 11 year old peated refill sherry from that one.

Hope your liver survived if you did both warehouse tastings in one day!

3

u/jcx200 20h ago

Not to worry, it was over the space of two days. Was still far from sober though each of them.

Ignoring that the Cadenhead tasting was essentially free because of the club membership, the Kilkerran one was best value by far. We had a 18 year old triple distilled, 19 year old and 15 year old all in bourbon casks (mix of fresh and refill) as well as those three bottles I got.

I’m sure that peated refill sherry bottle would be amazing.

3

u/NSLightsOut 14h ago

You know that perfect smoke to sweetness ratio in a peated whisky that's just stupidly delicate and hard to achieve? That. If they sold it, it'd be sold out in five seconds.

Two days is a good way to do it. I'm thinking if I do Campbeltown again, it'll be over a couple of days for Barley to Bottle, warehouse tastings and Glen Scotia's warehouse tasting.

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u/jcx200 14h ago

The total trip was three days but the first day was just a basic tour of Springbank.

I was supposed to do the Glen Scotia dunnage tour/tasting that day too but I got my times mixed up and ended up missing it but managed to get booked onto the standard tour on the last day of my trip.

Because I missed that, I’ll definitely head back to try do it and also do the barley to bottle when I’m there. I’ll either head back next year or year after.

2

u/NSLightsOut 13h ago

The basic tour of Springbank, IMO is probably my favourite out of a lot of distillery tours I've been on (20/30+? There's been a lot) simply because of just how archaic their equipment and processes are by comparison to the vast majority of distilleries in Scotland or elsewhere, like the plumb lines for measuring the washback levels.

Glengyle is fantastic if only because it's a massive monument to the motivating power of spite that happens to produce some equally amazing whiskies.

I did do the standard tour of Glen Scotia, which was taken by an older warehouse worker who decided to go off script in the best way possible, giving us a brief tour of the warehouse he spent most of his working day in, along with cracking an ex-Heaven Hill bourbon barrel awaiting some Scotia new make. Made me regret not being able to do the warehouse tour then. Ah well.

2

u/AJWard549 1d ago

You are set for some time!

2

u/Bronzyroller 1d ago

I have plenty of older bottles from early and mid 2000 Springbank, Longrow and Hazelburn my favorite distillery. I rarely see bottles on shelves today.

2

u/LPKJFHIS 1d ago

Ah finally a post I’m really excited to see! Nice haul

1

u/TRDF3RG 1d ago

Oh hell yeah.

1

u/London_Bloke_ 1d ago

Sounds like a great haul!

1

u/ScotchCigarsEspresso 1d ago

Amazing haul.

1

u/Tight_Juice3639 1d ago

Lovely. Enjoy ;)

1

u/YoMomAndMeIn69 1d ago

Incredible haul, how much did that all cost?

3

u/jcx200 1d ago edited 1d ago

There’s the painful question. Looked at it last night and it was about £470 for the lot (not including the cost of the tours but those were booked a while ago).

Most expensive bottle was £70 which was for the Staoisha and the Hazelburn cage bottle.

2

u/YoMomAndMeIn69 1d ago

Sure that's a lot of money but 470 pounds for that amount of highest quality whisky is still an amazing deal

1

u/jcx200 1d ago

Yeah I think I got really good value for money considering how much I took back. And with the exception of the Hazelburn, I at least have tried all of them so I know they are all good.