Sláinte Mhath
Exploring the rich whisky history of Campbeltown single malts
IINVITE you to type “Campbeltown lost distilleries” into Google. OK, now click on “Maps” just under the search bar. You’ll see pinpoints, with names like Broomhouse, Springside and Ardluss, dotted all over the town.
During the Victorian era, Campbeltown, found at the southern tip of the remote Kintyre peninsula, was known as the whisky capital of the world with more than 30 distilleries.
One of the three surviving, Glen Scotia, has recently called for people around the world to share photography which captures the peak of the whisky industry during the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.
Iain Mcalister, master distiller and distillery manager at Glen Scotia, said, “The contribution Campbeltown has made to Scotch is incomparable and we are proud to continue to fly the flag for the region.
“Whisky was a way of life in our coastal town for more than 100 years and over time, all that experience, craft and passion has been poured into Glen Scotia.
“We are looking for photography that will help us uncover what makes Campbeltown the ‘whiskiest place in the world’.”
Already bringing these mental images into sharper focus is Alfred Barnard, author of The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom.
He visited Campbeltown in 1885, where an ebullient herring boom caught his eye.
He observed “hardy fish women, with sunburnt faces, selling fresh herrings which glistened like silver in the sunshine.”
The harbour’s waters, he noted, were “teeming with life and hundreds of sails were riding safely at anchor on its ample bosom”.
While the fertile fields of Kintyre, the waters of the nearby Crosshill Loch and coal from the Drumlemble
“Just rivalry” imagine the craic, passion and
mine provided the raw materials, this teeming sea played a huge part in Campbeltown’s uisge beatha industry.
Steamship brought peat from the Hebrides and barley from Ireland and south-west Scotland. Steam took the finished product back out again to Glasgow, London and the brave new world beyond.
What must it have been like in this booming whisky outpost when all distilleries were firing, collectively producing almost two million gallons of spirit a year?
Just imagine all the craic, the passion, the rivalry, the smell of raw spirit and herring, all concentrated, like a sense-spinning cask strength whisky, in one remote town.
The place must have been absolutely abuzz. Sadly, several factors conspired to dull this sparkle.
In the 1900s, increasing vagaries of changing consumer tastes began to swing towards lighter blends, away from the area’s heavy, smoky offerings. Then came the closure of Drumlemble pit in 1923, Prohibition in the US and post-second World War duty hikes.
But Campbeltown’s story isn’t one of a binary rise and fall. Glengyle, Springbank and Glen Scotia are living day reminders of a proud past. Their continued rude health offers a bright future.
Yet, for me, it is Campbeltown’s forgotten story that represents, perhaps, the most prized tomb of riches – just waiting to be unearthed.