Springbank Society Newsletter

December 2013

Festive greetings Society Members!

Well, the final countdown to Christmas is well and truly on and things are almost tied up here for the year. All distillery and office staff are finishing up this Friday and will return to work on Monday 6th January after a well earned two week holiday! We always know that Christmas is near when the Springbank Santa visits the office to give us our present from the company – today he dropped off a bottle of Springbank Burgundy Wood for each of us which looks delicious! We are all looking forward to the festivities and will be kicking things off in style on Friday evening with the Springbank Christmas night out where we will enjoy dinner in one of the local restaurants before descending on the pubs of Campbeltown!

Friday will mark the end of an extremely busy and successful year for us. The Sales Team have been doing their sums this week and have worked out that in 2013 they have:

* Visited 21 countries across the globe

* Attended 45 festivals and shows

* Hosted 63 tastings

Tour figures have also been counted and during 2013 we welcomed over 3,600 visitors to the distillery with numbers continuing to increase steadily each year. As well as Grant, George and old favourite Jim showing guests around, we had two new additions to the tour team this year; Siobhan and Martin who have been doing a great job of learning the process and sharing their knowledge on how things are done at Springbank. I think it’s safe to say that they have all been very busy bees and definitely deserve the upcoming break!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your continued support and loyalty during 2013 and also for making me feel very welcome when I took over the running of the Society in the Summer. I have loved my time with the Society so far and have really enjoyed getting to know many of you this year. I am keen to introduce some new things to the Society in 2014 and would like to hear any ideas you may have. We are always open to suggestions so it would be great if you could tell me if there is anything you would like to see introduced – I can’t make any promises that we will do them all but its always interesting to hear your ideas and hopefully we will be able to try some of them out in the future.

Glengyle Distillation

Our 6 still men and woman have been up at Glengyle distilling for the past 6 weeks and will conclude operation today. 2014 is going to be a very exciting year for the Kilkerran whisky as it celebrates its 10th birthday. We plan to have a night to mark this special occasion and will most likely tie it in with the Open Day in May so I will keep you all posted with details in the new year.

Christmas Market at Springbank Distillery

On Sunday 8th December, the Malt Barns at Springbank were transformed into a Winter Wonderland for the first annual Explore Campbeltown Christmas Market. When the Malt Barns have not been in use we have discovered that they are a great venue for events to be held in! Over the year they have featured a pop up Art Gallery for talented local artist Dawnne McGeachy, hosted the wedding of Mark Watt from Cadenhead’s and now played host to the Christmas Market.

In the lead up to the event, Charlie and John did an impressive job of giving the Malt Barns a colourful make-over and all the supporting pillars (yes, all 42 of them) have been painted in a range of different colours. For those of you who have not been to the distillery, all the pillars were previously painted a dull shade of orange, but they now feature a mix of orange, red, green, purple and gold! Not only do they brighten the place up, but each of the colours also represent a label in the core Springbank range and they actually look really great!

As Springbank was one of the founding members of Explore Campbeltown back in February, I have been heavily involved with the day to day running of the website and Facebook page as well as helping to organise the various events held throughout the year.

The idea of a Christmas Market was first suggested by one of the stall holders at our Open Day in May this year and I worked together with her to create a fun filled day that all the family could enjoy.

A total of 46 local businesses were present selling a range of gifts, with a mixture of local crafters and retail shops as well as beauty and food stalls. Donald and Leslie from Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop were there selling Springbank products and Donald also made some Mulled Wine and Hot Toddies for the day although if you know Donald, I’m sure you can guess that he drank just as much as he sold!

We had a very talented member of the Campbeltown Brass Band entertaining the crowds on her Cornet for the majority of the day, playing lots of our Christmas favourites and she raised a fantastic sum of £192.19 for the Brass Band. Santa and his charming elves managed to take time out of their busy schedule to come along for the day and were kept extremely busy with excited kids (and some adults!) dropping by the grotto telling Santa what was on their wish list.

We were all amazed at the number of both locals and visitors who turned up in their hundreds to enjoy the day and get into the Christmas spirit. There was a great buzz about the place and the Malt Barns have proved to be an excellent choice of venue for this type of event as they have bags of atmosphere. There has been some brilliant feedback and we are already thinking about ways to make it even bigger and better next year!

Malt Maniacs Awards 2013

The results of the Malt Maniacs Awards were published recently and we are delighted with the results as all three of our entries were awarded medals. The latest batch of Springbank 12 year old Cask Strength (50.3%) was crowned the winner of the ‘Best Natural Cask’ in the Daily Drams Section and also won a silver medal overall with 86 points out of 100. The Longrow Red Shiraz cask scored an impressive 88 points out of 100 and also won a silver medal and the Campbeltown Loch 21 year old was awarded a bronze medal with 82 points out of 100. It’s a great achievement for all three to be recognised by the judging panel and we would like to say well done and thank you to all involved in the 11th edition of the awards.

Whisky School 2014

Whisky School places for 2014 have been filling up very fast and the bookings have definitely been keeping Janet on her toes! There are only 3 spaces left to fill during the 7 week spell next year. There is 1 space left on Term 6 (week commencing Monday 16th June 2014) and 2 spaces left on Term 7 (the final week which will commence Monday 23rd June). If you would like to find out more about what the Whisky School involves then please email whiskyschool@springbankwhisky.com and Janet will be more than happy to give you more details.

Latest Society Bottling

Many of our UK members have already received the new Society bottle (Springbank 12 year old Port – £55.00, released in November 2013) and I’ve had some good feedback on it. Just a reminder that reserved Society bottles which are to be delivered to our European shops for members will begin to be dispatched in the new year with the next shop orders. I do not have specific time scales for this yet so please be patient and I will try to get dates to you as quickly as I can in the new year. If you would like your bottle sent to one of the shops and have not stated this to me yet then please do asap so we can arrange for it to be included in the first order in 2014. Bottles can be sent to the following shops for collection:

• Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop, Campbeltown, Scotland

• Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop, Edinburgh, Scotland

• Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop, London

• Cadenhead’s Whisky Market, Cologne, Germany

• Cadenhead’s Whisky Market, Berlin, Germany

• Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop, Odense, Denmark

• Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop, Copenhagen, Denmark

• Cadenhead’s Whisky & More, Baden, Switzerland

• Cadenhead’s Whisky Market, Salzburg, Austria

2014 Releases

There will be two exciting releases from the distillery in January 2014.

The first will be the new batch of Springbank 21 year old which will be bottled at 46% with only 2,700 bottles available worldwide. The cost for this will remain unchanged for another year and will retail at £180.00 per bottle. Society members will receive a slight discount of £10.00 per bottle and will be able to buy it for £170.00.

The other special release will be the Hazelburn Rundlets & Kilderkins which is the third and final release from the R&K range. This will be 10 years old and bottled at 50.1% with 12,000 bottles available for worldwide distribution. The whisky was put in small casks for the duration of the maturation which were a mixture of ex Bourbon and Sherry casks. The price per bottle is £60.00 and Society members will get their full 10% discount making it £54.00 for all of you.

Well, that pretty much sums up what is going on here in Campbeltown so all that is left for me to say is that I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year filled with lots of happiness and of course, lots of whisky! I look forward to speaking to you all in 2014.

Slainte,

Mairi

To join the Springbank Society please contact them at society@springbankwhisky.com