Annual Sailing Trip To Campbeltown
It’s become a tradition.
My nephew and I took our first whisky dash back in June 2022 and this is now the third time we have made the sprint for a weekend at what many regard as the Whisky Capital of the world. We had a day packed with whisky activity; a blending session, a warehouse tasting, a trip to the shop and the Tasting Room Bar.
After moving to Skye at the end of last year, my nephew faced the long drive from The Misty Isle of around six hours and arrived just after three in the afternoon. I had travelled through to Largs earlier in the week to get the boat ready, all fueled up, victuals stored and checks done, we were able to set off straight away, and break the journey to Campbeltown with a stop at the moorings in Lamlash Bay in the shadow of The Holy Isle, home to a Tibetan Buddhist Centre – not to be confused with Holy Island which is off the coast of Northumberland and in another country. We spent a fine evening sipping some of the growing collection of excellent whisky accumulating in Jess’s lockers.
It’s just three hours from Largs to Lamlash but heading there first would mean we could arrive in Campletown by dinner time the following day. Campbeltown can get very busy as it is the last (or first) stop when waiting for tides if sailing around The Mull of Kintyre or across the North Channel to Northern Ireland, so I was keen to arrive as soon as we could in between those leaving and those arriving. It was a fairly dreich and at times, lively crossing from Arran to Campbeltown. But, we managed a bit of a sail and made good progress, arriving in the marina just after one-thirty where there were a couple of spaces left on the pontoons. While I tidied up Dougie set off to the town for a loaf of bread and something to put on it for our dinner pieces, returning with some underwhelming stuff that claimed to be “baked ham”, and a bottle of Kilkerran. He had sneaked into the Springbank Shop! Cheese, ham and pickle pieces with a dram.
With tomorrow being the big day we decided to caw canny on Friday night with just a couple of drams from the whisky store, a Euro 2024 fitba match and turning in early. Whisky was good, fitba not so much.
Double breakfast!
Cereal, coffee and juice when we woke and then just before we left for Cadenhead’s, rounds of toast and marmalade to line our stomachs in preparation for all that lovely liquid we would be consuming! Ten-forty and a short walk up the Toon to the Cadenhead’s Shop to make ourselves known. The shop was busy with lots of folks coming and going but just like last year, when Holly (our guide and helper) led us into the lab, we were the only ones doing the “Cadenhead’s Creations-Blending Session“. Springbank offers something similar with its “Barley to Bottle Tour“, the difference being you get eight drams to blend (all Springbanks), lunch in the “Washback Bar” and a complimentary dram. You also get a tour of the Springbank Distillery and the Glengyle Distillery. On the other hand, with Cadenhead’s experience, you get eight single malts to blend (in 50ml test tubes) from across Scotland, a copita glass, a notebook and just like Springbank, your own unique 750ml blended bottle to take away. There’s no tour or lunch included but it is less than half the price of Springbank!
Holly led us through the basic method of blending, telling us how much of each whisky we could use and to have a few goes before deciding on a final blend. There are seven malts and one grain from distilleries across Scotland, all tasted blind. The Islay was easy to pick out and not being a big fan of peat, I discounted it straight away. I struggled a bit with the others but between us, we managed to find the grain with Dougie having more success identifying the others than me. Even after the session has finished, you are only told the region and not the distillery. Of course, as the session progressed we got to blethering more and more shite, understandable after consuming the best part of a half bottle of cask strength drams. This was my final blending recipe. As I said, I left out “H” as it was peated, “E” was distinctly eggy and sulfurous and “F” was just a bit too farmyardy for me. I will leave my blend for a couple of weeks to marry before I open it and discover just what sort of job I have done at blending 😀
Once you have finished your blending, it’s bottled, labelled, abv tested and a nice wax top is put on. We left Holly doing this and retired to the Tasting Room Bar for some lunch and a couple of surprises of a 25yo Ben Nevis from the Campbeltown Malts Festival, and a 12yo Springbank in Oloroso, compliments of Cameron McGeachy, head of sales at Cadenhead’s. My nephew, Dougie, is one of Dramface’s Screivers – although he is a wee bit better as a writer than the original Scot’s meaning of the word – “a writer, used somewhat contemptuously, a scribbler, ‘a mean scribe’”. He’s got to know a lot of people in the whisky industry. I loved the Ben Nevis and Doug loved the Springbank – we swapped and had double helpings 😛 .
Mair breid for dinner.
But this time filled with lots of deliciousness to soak up all that juice! We sat in the Tasting Room Bar enjoying our drams and munching away on our pieces. Next up was the tasting session. The “Warehouse Tasting” has been moved from one of the warehouses at Springbank to some new and renovated buildings on Bolgam Street, where work is still going on. We wandered around to the shop where we met our guide, Ali.
I have been to a few tastings, nearly all of them interesting and enjoyable, but this one was rather special, more of a show and comedy sketch as Ali took on roles of a guide, expert, comedian and showman, just fantastic. Imparted all the facts and knowledge about the drams in an informal entertaining, funny way. Ali is originally from Peru and made his way to Campbeltown after replying to an advert on Facebook. COVID was (and according to Ali, still is to a certain degree) running unchecked in Peru and so he decided to get away from it. Peru’s loss, Cadenhead’s gain.
We were joined on the tasting by a family from Austin, Texas on holiday touring Scotland and discovering some superb whiskies, and a family from Ballycastle in Northern Ireland, owners of a large motor boat (really, just a motor home for the sea). We got chatting to them all later when we retired back to the Tasting Room Bar.
In between drinking water profusely and copiously (we seemed the only ones to be doing this), Ali introduced six lovely drams. The first was a blend of Aultmore 12 yo, Glenrothes 24 yo and a Dalwhinnie 12 yo 54.9%. It was OK but there are better blended malts for less than the £55 asking price in my opinion. Second was a Glentauchers 16 yo 49.4% at £75 – it was a nice sherry dram but again a wee bit pricey. Third up was a Glenburgie Madeira 12 yo at 57.5% and very good it was at a great price of £55 – this was the third Speyside and we jokingly let Ali know it and he quickly replied that the fourth was yet another. It wasn’t, instead a superb Glen Garioch 11 yo finished in Amontillado. Fifth was a Craigellachie 13 yo 55.1% finished in Oloroso again, wonderful and well priced at £60. Last up was a Staoisha – 9 yo 60.4% from Bunnahabhain at £70 – not really to my liking.
Me and Dougie decide the Craigellachie and Glenburgie are fantastic and buy a bottle of each to split. The Geery is just too good to pass on and we buy one each. We wandered back across the road and sat outside chatting to the Texans and the family from Ballycastle. Dougie tears off the tissue from his newly blended bottle and Tim’s (of the Texas family) eyes widen and his jaw drops as he catches Dougie’s avatar on the bottle. He has been reading Dramface articles throughout the trip and Dougie Crystal articles in particular – he can’t believe it. We continue to chat about the blending, tasting sessions, sailing, whisky, Northern Ireland and Texas.
We have our complimentary tasting dram – both having a Geery. Last orders in the bar and I buy a round for everyone (well the two Texans who are still drinking) another GG for me, and Miltonduff for the tourists. We spotted Ali earlier peering through the fence and indicating that he was taking our warehouse purchases to the shop. Dougie is getting increasingly agitated as it approaches half past five despite the shop not closing until six and despite my attempts to have him calm down, we trot around to the shop at five thirty for our goodies. I bought a bottle of Cadenhead’s Blended Malt, which gets great reviews and we both buy small bottles of a Glen Garrioch White Port finish. Dougie heads for Tesco to get a couple of pizzas for tea and I stagger back to the boat, laden down with litres of whisky, to put the oven on. We get the pizza on but sadly the gas runs out and I have no spare – it’s warm and soggy, I ate it with gusto, and Dougie moaned.
We finish off the evening with a couple of drams before finally turning in, exhausted, after a fantastic day of blending, sipping, laughing, chatting and sharing – exactly what whisky is all about!
Sunday morning arrives and we both feel remarkably well despite the astonishing amount of whisky we consumed the day before. I think the secret is that we drank litres and litres of water in between. The journey back was on a flat – calm sea and we motored all the way with the main sail up, occasionally managing to bring out the genoa and getting a nice one to two knot benefit from a very light wind. We arrived in Largs just after four o’clock. Dougie packed up his car and we went to get a couple of gas bottles. Nice crispy hot pizza for tea and a ready-meal curry from the fridge, washed down with yet another couple of drams!
Dougie set off on the long trek home at just after five this morning – I went back to sleep! I am staying on the boat for a couple of days to tidy up, write this up and get Jess ready for our next trip which might be a transit of the Crinan Canal to Kerrera, an island opposite Oban, where I am leaving her for a couple of weeks before Alan and his wife Lynda come on board for a few days after which Alan and I will be setting off around Ardnamurchan!
We had a fantastic trip – Dougie is great company and I can’t wait to do it all again next year!