Greetings to all Society members from not so sunny Campbeltown. We are back to our usual Scottish weather, with all four seasons in one day. Right now it’s winter, with grey skies and occasional heavy showers of rain. Perfect weather for sitting by the fire.
Tour Guide
You may remember that we advertised for a tour guide to help us out for 3 months over the summer. The “lucky” person was Bernhard Luenberger, who is a Society Member. His time with us has just finished and he is on his way home. I asked Bernhard to give us a little report on his time with us at Springbank. He managed to learn a little of the local dialect, as you will see, and he made a lot of friends both in Springbank and the local community.
Confessions of a Tour Guide
“I will question you about this”, Frank McHardy said with a grin, handing me
over the documentation about Springbank distillery the morning after the
Glengyle open day during my second visit to Campbeltown. The first time
already being a few years back, I wanted to see my place of work for the 3
summer months and to attend the Glengyle open day on the 21.05.09. Indeed it was a great event with lots of music, guided tours of both distilleries by the respective managers and having an interesting Kilkerran tasting with Frank in the Glengyle Filling Store. I’m already looking forward to the Springbank open day next year!
Coming back from the Islay Festival of Malt and Music on the 1st of June I
was shown the cosy apartment right above the Whisky shop and the next day I was already in the shop wearing a Springbank polo shirt and trying to serve customers, filling shop shelves and operating the till under the guidance of 2 very patient teachers: Leslie and Donald. Not only did they show me how the Cadenhead’s shop is working but they also introduced me to the idiomatic specialities of the Campbeltonian lingo: “What’s happening in Campbeltown?” translates into “Hoots heppenin doon in the wee toon?” and “Out and about” into “Oot and aboot”. It took me roughly 1 month to get used to it and especially in noisy pubs I still need to ask twice or more times to understand everything.
During the first week in Campbeltown I attended tours by our main tour guide Jim and by Peter Currie. Further I was introduced to the friendly staff at Springbank distillery. Everybody was enormously helpful and answered all my questions regarding Whisky and administrative stuff. One of the many
highlights for me was that Gordon, Hector, John and Pop from the production team allowed me to follow them a few times and to look over their shoulders while they performed their varied tasks.
On the Saturday of my first week what I had awaited eagerly finally
happened: I held my first tour through the distillery. I was quite nervous
and I had my notes in the backpack just in case I’d forgotten an important
detail. Apart from being a bit long, the tour worked out fine and over the
following weeks I managed to hold my tours a little more relaxed and
customised according to the interests of the guests. I held most tours in
English but every once in a while there were some French or German speaking guests who were very glad to have a tour in their own language, helping them to understand all the details and being able to ask questions more precisely. The technical terms were quite a challenge for me, so a lot of hand work and explaining was required.
There were roughly 5 different kinds of guests on tours and in the shop:
locals (Springbank bottles with customised labels are very popular wedding
and birthday presents), campers (there are quite a few campsites along the
beautiful sandy beaches of Kintyre), sailors and windsurfers (enjoying the
strong wind and the beauty of the lochs and Islands along the Scottish west
coast), golfers (the two courses at Machrihanish are well known and very
popular, even occasionally attracting Prince Andrew) and last but not least
the Springbank Whisky fanatics from all over the world. It’s amazing to see
what a strong support Springbank gets from its aficionados from literally
all around the globe: During the 3 summer months we had guests from all over Europe, the Americas, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. For many, the long journey down to Campbeltown was like a pilgrimage. And this is exactly what made my job as tour guide at Springbank so rewarding: the majority of guests were very much into Springbank and Whisky in general, asked me tricky questions to investigate and told me details I hadn’t known before. Every single tour was a special experience for me and hopefully also for the guests. Sometimes I met the guests after work in a pub or at the Ardshield hotel whisky bar (Flora upgraded the bar to over 400 different bottles of Single Malt in the last year) and we continued exchanging the latest news of the Whisky world over a dram or a pint.
Working only 5 days a week from 9 to 5 left me with a lot of spare time to
explore the beautiful nature of Kintyre and beyond: I did a few sections of the long distance hiking path “The Kintyre Way” (www.kintyreway.com) spanning the whole of Kintyre, went to beautiful hills and lochs around Campbeltown and climbed its landmark mountain Beinn Ghuilean by foot and on a mountain bike with Pete. Other highlights in the area are the Southend Highland Games, the great Mull of Kintyre Music Festival and last but not least the very lively pubs of Campbeltown featuring live music and a cheerful crowd.
To sum up I had a great time being part of the Springbank family for these 3
months and I would strongly recommend applying early for this job next year! I would like to say thank you to Frank and Peter for making this possible, to Grant and Ranald for your guidance and support, to Leslie and Donald for your instructions and patience, to Janet for your help and taps on the shoulder and to everybody at Springbank for making my stay such a memorable experience!
You’ll never guess – my last day and Frank tracked me down!!!!!
Test taken – results to be published.
Cheers
Bernhard
TEST RESULTS ARE IN – BERNHARD HAD A 92% PASS!!!!!
SOCIETY BOTTLE
We have started to talk about the next Society Bottle, and I have asked Frank to get together with Stuart and for them to dust down the casks at the back of the warehouse and come up with something a bit different for you. We will wait with baited breath to see what they suggest. Hopefully this will not take too long.
The last Society bottle, a Longrow 12 year old is going very well, with lots of members coming back for another. If you missed out we still have a little left, so let me know if you would like some. The cost is £45 plus postage and packing. Feedback from members has been very positive, as always.
FACEBOOK
I’ve been on and registered, I see that Springbank has a lot of fans, if you’ve not been on yet, you should have a wee look.
SPRINGBANK OPEN DAY
Next year Springbank will be the host for our open day on Thursday 20th May, so get your holidays booked early!!!!! We will have two casks for bottling on the day. There will also be at least one Masterclass, lots of products to be sampled, tours of the distillery, music and food, and who knows what else we will come up with. I did suggest a bouncy castle for the big kids, but that was a no…………….maybe a dunk tank????
Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop will also host rather special tastings in the tasting room. All will be revealed at a later date.
We will keep you up to date with the final plans, as they emerge.
OUT & ABOUT WITH PETER & RANALD
Whisky Live Glasgow: Saturday 12th September in The Thistle Hotel, Cambridge Street, Glasgow. Peter will be at Whisky Live, so if you are in the area, why not pop along and see him on the Springbank stand. He might have samples from the casks of Hazelburn we are considering for the next Society bottle, so be sure to take your Society Membership card with you if you would like a wee taste.
The Technical Bit – by Stuart Robertson – Milling
Anyone who has had the experience of being here at the distillery when we are milling will have seen a sight only familiar to persons of a certain age. It is very unusual to see belt driven machinery anywhere these days but at Springbank we take great pride in the fact things haven’t changed much here in the last half century. A large single electric motor drives the main shaft which in turn drives a number of conveyors, elevators, a dust extractor, a drum screen and the mill. It is very rewarding to see the faces of people who see the mill in operation as they all, without exception, take delight in seeing belt driven machinery and will tell you it is an amazing experience. The noise, the different sounds, the smells and the sight of the mill in operation all add to the uniqueness of a visit to Springbank.
Why do we mill the malted barley? This is a question I am often asked and the simple answer is to allow the water to penetrate into the malted barley and convert the starches and protein into soluble products. The milling process allows us to prepare a grist of a consistency that allows fast wort run off and good extraction efficiency.
It is important to get the milling process right as it plays a major part in how efficiently the distillery produces alcohol. Malt is transferred from the selected malt bin through a conveyor, into an elevator, down a chute which has a large magnet for catching bits of metal and into a drum screen which removes any foreign objects and small corns. The cleaned malt passes down into the weighing machine and then into the malt mill, each coup of the weigher is 40 Kg. The mill is set to grind the malt into grist which contains 20% husk, 70% grits and 10% flour, this is the ideal consistency for our mash tun to allow clear wort drainage and good extraction. The grist as it is now known is transferred from the mill along a conveyor into an elevator, across a conveyor and finally into the grist bin where it will stay until needed.
The consistency of the grist is constantly monitored throughout the grind to ensure the mill is doing its job effectively. The operator takes a sample of approximately 120 grammes from the bottom of the mill and places it into a sieve box. The box has sieve screens with holes of different diameters the top sieve being larger than the bottom sieve. The lid is secured and the sieve box is shaken a number of times before the different fractions are weighed. Each fraction is weighed independently and a note of the weight taken. The husk, grits and flour weights are combined to give a total weight. Each fraction is then worked out as a percentage of the total weight.
As usual, anyone who would like a deeper understanding of the milling process please feel free to drop us an e-mail.
All the best
Stuart Robertson
Distillery Manager
SPRINGBANK/GLENGYLE TOURS & TASTING
Grant MacPherson has moved from Cadenhead sales to take over as Manager of Cadenhead’s Whisky shop in Campbeltown. He has been busy this last few weeks getting the tasting room set out in his own very tidy, organised fashion. This week he has taken delivery of a cask of Hazelburn for the tasting room, to add to the Kilkerran, Springbank and Longrow already there, available for visitors who have a tour of the distillery then a tasting in the tasting room, you will be able to buy a bottle of Hazelburn straight from the cask.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST
As usual if there is anything you would like to share with us, please get in touch. We are always happy to hear from you.
Slainte
Janet
for Springbank Society
To join the Springbank Society please contact Janet at society@springbankwhisky.com
Kilkerran Single Malt – £29.99 inc. VAT £26.08 ex. VAT
