The Location

The town of Campbeltown is situated on the west coast of Scotland, on the south east coast of the Kintyre Peninsular. Whilst the neighbouring whisky region of Islay faces the ferocity of the North Atlantic Ocean, and its ‘next stop’ is North America, Kintyre faces the Irish Sea and Campbeltown sits in the lea of the prevailing westerlies, snugly facing the comparatively tamer Kilbrannan Sound, and its ‘next stop’ is Scotland in miniature, the Isle of Arran. Therefore, you may perceive a little less salt in your Cambpeltown dram than in your Islay Laphroaig, but a little more than in your Island Arran or your Lowland Glenkinchie.

The Why

With a little shelter, a plentiful supply of bere then barley, and the constant supply of water from the heavens and the springs, the burns and the lochs, there was the capacity in and around Campbeltown for the production of great volumes, even lochfulls, of whisky. There was the huge and thirsty port of Glasgow just up the water, then Edinburgh’s gentry just a doddle along the canal, London just down a bit, and a goodly proportion of the rest of the world either on our doorstep or in our ownership, in our Victorian Empire. All in all, a huge demand for Campbelton whisky developed, and was met, during the nineteenth century.

The Distilleries

In 1887 Alfred Barnard described in his book The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom (Harper’s Weekly Gazette) all 21 distilleries which were in production in Campbeltown which boosted the total in Scotland to129 at that time. Moreover, many additional distilleries came and went in and around the town. Even with a good measure of inflation Campbeltown was a small town; a small town crammed full to overflowing with working distilleries. Production reached a level which necessitated importation of barley from Perthshire and Moray, through the harbour. Indeed, if the annual harvest in Scotland was poor then barley was imported from down south, Scandinavia or northern Europe, for this was a global industry, a major player in a globally powerful economy. It was indeed a small town, but definitely not a small and parochial town: the palm trees on the seafront are a testament to its wide horizons.

The Past History

Barnard took ‘six hours to travel the forty miles by horse drawn coach’ from Tarbet to Campbeltown; there was no railway. Therefore, the only means of transporting large quantities of barley into the town, and rolling large numbers of weighty barrels and crates of precious bottles out, was by sea. The closer the distillery to the harbour the better - the main street fine, being in the outskirts just added to transport costs. And so most of the distilleries in the whisky region of Campbeltown were crammed as close as was possible to the harbour and its piers and its sea. There was the bustle and noise, the puffers and the ferries and the distillery mills and their machinery. The local population swelled by throngs of summer visitors and whisky-men the year round. The stacks of empty barrels and the warehouses full of full barrels, the smell of the angel’s share on a still damp day, the peat reek, and coal smoke from the furnaces which directly fired most of the 51 stills in the town in the 1880s. The aromas created by the distilleries waste and the horses and the harbour. The fog, smog and pollution. But all long gone, in our Elizabethan Empire.

The Present

But the beauty of our whisky, our Scottish whisky, is that it enables us to bring it all back in a quiet moment, one by one or all together, with a dram of Springbank or Hazelburn or Longrow or Glen Scotia, and Glengyle when it comes of age. Its all there, in the splash and tumble of the dram as it falls over into your glass, in the colour, in the light, in texture and on your palate. You can realise it all. From one licensed distillery in the town in 1815, to 30 at one stage during the nineteenth century, and back to just three in 2008. At the very least we can straddle three centuries through Campbeltown, and much more if the illicit distilling is included. What happened in-between is well worth investigating. And what is happening now is most definitely worth visiting. Springbank and Glenscotia offer tours by appointment, and these days you can attend a whisky school, purchase a cask or futures. See the sea, see the peat-reek, smell the reek, taste the reek and take it home in a bottle to see and savour. ‘Six hours to Campbelown’, ……not any more!.... It takes far less time to drive there from Edinburgh these days, and, Macrahanish Airport is to hand too. The Campbeltown Whisky Region is on the Whisky Barrel Highway now, its there for us all to enjoy.