Springbank Quarterly- November Newsletter
For the members of our Springbank Society,
Summer is certainly behind us now as autumn has heralded its arrival with a combination of a chilly breeze and series of storms over the past few weeks. Consequences have included the relatively trivial (Springbank Towers are absolutely freezing) to the more serious (the high rainfall has caused a landslide on the A83, closing the road and leading to a diversion of 58 miles). It could be a long, cold winter… guess we will have to enjoy a few drams to warm ourselves up.
In this Quarterly Newsletter we shall discuss some Distillery news, bring you exciting new bottling announcements and update you on our Sales Team’s upcoming trips and events.
And for UK based Society members, we are going to point you in the direction of a recent TV programme focusing on Kintyre – information on that can be found towards the end of this email.
Distillery News
The production year started afresh in August and it’s full steam ahead here in Campbeltown. This year production will increase to 400,000 litres between both Springbank and Mitchell’s Glengyle distilleries. Five years ago, annual production was 125,000 litres in total so output has increased significantly over this period. Kilkerran will be produced at Glengyle distillery for 3 months this year, so the future is looking very exciting for our sister distillery. The malt barns are back in operation too and the distillery staff have been malting local barley for the last few weeks.
The distillery shop is beginning to look like it has always been there. The new warehouse being built between Springbank and Glengyle now has foundations and a cement floor in place. This is a long term project and we will provide updates to members as the construction continues. This monster racked warehouse will be a sibling to the other 2 racked warehouses we have, warehouses 6 and 15. We’re looking to forward to learning the number of this warehouse, safe in the knowledge that it can’t be any more confusing than the current situation where there are 8 warehouses in total but the numbered warehouses go up to 15.
Since we are discussing Distillery news, now seems like a good time to announce the release of 2 upcoming bottlings; 1 from Springbank and 1 from Glengyle.
Springbank 9 YO Local Barley 57.7%
The much anticipated 4th annual release of Local Barley from Springbank Distillery. A 9yo whisky at 57.7%, this offering is the penultimate release in our series of 5 annual Local Barley bottlings.
Kilkerran 8 YO Cask Strength 56.5%
Also coming soon: the newest edition of Kilkerran 8yo cask strength. This 56.5% abv release comes from our sister distillery, Mitchell’s Glengyle, the home of Kilkerran Single Malt.
You will all receive a Newsflash email to announce the launch date very soon to give you a chance to get your hands on a bottle or two. Also included in this Newsflash email will be a request for you all to not post any product details on social media as this counteracts the effect of members getting to know about launches in advance. Thank you for your cooperation.
The Next Society Bottle
Although the next Society exclusive release is not scheduled for release until February/March of 2019, we thought we would let you all know about the changes we will be implementing then. We have been aware that our existing methods of ordering and paying for bottles has become antiquated, slow and, due to the Society’s increasing membership, difficult to manage on our end so we have decided to make a change.
If you are a member of the Cadenhead Club run by our friends at Wm Cadenhead’s you will know that they recently entered the 21st century by allowing members to pay online for Club bottles and we are delighted to say we are following in their footsteps – thanks to feedback from members we have decided to adopt an online ordering and payment system in the interest of fairness and practicality. Long time members will be aware that occasionally we have to make changes to the way the Society is run due to its growing size and this is one of those situations.
Further details will be released nearer the time.
Events: Where can you find our Sales Team?
Over the next few months our dedicated and hard working Sales Team will be travelling the globe spreading the word of Springbank (+ Kilkerran) and sharing a few drams with you all. Below is a list of dates, places and events detailing what our sales team will be up to in the near future.
November:
10th: Glasgow Whisky Festival – Grant Macpherson will be in attendance at the Glasgow Whisky Festival. Join Grant in Glasgow as he shares drams of Springbank, Longrow, Hazelburn and Kilkerran. Full details on the show can be found here.
10th & 11th: Spirits in the Sky – David Allen and Mitch Graham will be in Belgium for Spirits in the Sky. Find out more details on one of our favourite events here.
15th-17th: Malta Whisky Festival – Ronan Currie and Mitch Graham travel to Malta for Market and Account visits on the 15th before attending the show on 16th + 17th. We are also hosting a tasting on each night too.
22nd-25th: Whisky und Rum Schiff – Melanie Stanger is in Zurich representing Springbank at Whisky & Rumschiff Zurich.
23th & 24th: Dublin Whisky Festival – Grant Macpherson takes the first of two back-to-back trips out of the UK (he is heading to Zurich at the end of November) as he attends the Dublin Whisky Live event.
24th: Drambusters – Ranald Watson will be at Drambusters Whisky Festival in Dumfries on Saturday 24th November. We look forward to seeing you all in Dumfries.
23rd-29th: South Korea Tasting Tour – Ronan Currie will be in Seoul, Korea for Market and Account visits between 23rd and 28th November 2018. Further details can be found on our website.
26th-30th: Sales Manager David Allen and Mitch Graham are in the Netherlands for a sales tour on the week commencing Monday 26th November.
29th – 1st December: Whiskyschiff Zurich Albisgutli – Grant Macpherson will be in Zurich at the end of November for Whiskyschiff representing Kilkerran Single Malt. For full details – click here
Events taking place further in the future will be included in the next Quarterly Newsletter and, please remember, the Events Section of the Springbank Website is updated whenever we have new information to share with you all.
Springbank Website – Events Page
Social Media
You can follow Springbank on Social Media:
Facebook – Official Springbank Whisky
Twitter – @Springbank1828
Instagram- springbank1828
You can follow Kilkerran Single Malt on Facebook and Instagram too.
Finally, if you are missing Kintyre, we recommend catching up on Paul Murton’s excellent series, Grand Tours of Scotland’s Lochs, series 2, episode 6, Decline and Fall which takes you on a picturesque and informative tour of the Kintyre peninsula. You can find it on the BBC iPlayer (originally broadcast on BBC 2, Monday 15 October at 7.30pm). Unfortunately, this is only available to those living in UK.
Thanks for reading the Springbank Society Quarterly Newsletter of (late) autumn 2018.
As usual, if you have any questions or queries you can contact us via email at the following address – society@springbank.scot
Goodbye for now…
But you’ll be hearing from us again very soon!
Slainte
Springbank Society
The Springbank Team
Springbank Distillers
www.springbank.scot
To join the Springbank Society contact them via society@springbank.scot
