The Campbeltown Malts Festival shouldn’t be the don’t-miss whisky event it’s become. The region is Scotland’s smallest, with only three distilleries currently operational, and the town itself is isolated, located on the far reaches of the Kintyre peninsula. It’s also sandwiched between two bigger events: the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival and Fèis Ìle on Islay.
However, thanks to the fanaticism and reverence around Campbeltown’s single malts, Scotch Whisky lovers have been flocking to the festival in their droves since it launched in 2008.
I finally attended the festival for the first time this year. Glass and notebook in hand, I set out to discover all I could about the town’s whisky makers and marketers – and I wasn’t disappointed.
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READ THE STORYWm Cadenhead’s is the only company that can independently bottle Glenfarclas whisky — and use its name.
While many distilleries allow independent bottlers to use their name when bottling their casks, there are others that prefer to retain anonymity (often, but not always, for commercial reasons). Glenfarclas Distillery and Wm Cadenhead’s came to blows over this issue in the 1990s. Following a legal wrangle between the companies’ patriarchs, John Grant and Hedley Wright, it was decided that Cadenhead’s could bottle two hogsheads per year and label the whisky as Glenfarclas.
Glengyle Distillery doesn’t have a spirit still.
Well, not technically. The distillery’s copper pot stills, sourced from GlenWyvis, were both built as wash stills. One was reduced in size, from 18,000 litres to 15,000, to make it a functional spirit still. For a bonus still fact: both Springbank and Glengyle have a 7° angle on the lyne arms of their stills — at Glengyle it’s an incline, helping produce the lighter spirit needed for its Kilkerran single malts, while at Springbank it’s a decline, making for a more robust spirit.
Watt Whisky is the only independent bottler founded in Campbeltown.
Founded by husband-and-wife team Mark and Kate Watt in 2019, Watt Whisky is the only born-and-bred Campbeltonian independent bottler. While Wm Cadenhead’s is the town’s better-known indie bottler (and, incidentally, the oldest in Scotland), it was actually founded in Aberdeen in 1842 and only moved to the Wee Toon in 1972.
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A glass factory fire in 2025 caused the Kilkerran bottle to change shape.
The company from which J&A Mitchell sources its whisky bottles suffered a catastrophic fire at one of its production facilities last year. With the supply of Kilkerran’s newer, longer-necked bottles running dry, the decision was made to switch back to the dumpier old design. This shape was chosen as much for convenience as custom, since it could be filled on the semi-automated line at Springbank’s bottling plant.
Springbank enlists a cooperative of farmers to grow its barley.
This cooperative operates in north-east Scotland, growing Laureate barley for the distillery. While Springbank is only in operation for nine months a year, the distillery still processes a significant quantity of barley, floor-malting 24 tonnes every week. Arable farming is labour intensive and costly, wholesale crop prices are volatile, and profit margins can be paper-thin, so security of demand from a whisky distillery and the collective power of a cooperative can be hugely valuable for agricultural businesses.
J&A Mitchell knows its sherry casks.
The owner of Springbank and Glengyle distilleries and Cadenhead’s sources its sherry casks from respected Jerez bodega Miguel Martín. You don’t set up a relationship like that unless you’re serious about sherry.
There were a variety of sherry cask-matured and finished whiskies on offer from J&A Mitchell at the festival, from Oloroso to Amontillado, Palo Cortado and Fino. Each style brings its own nuances, from Fino’s crisp salinity to Palo Cortado’s orange-tinted breadiness, and the blending team at J&A Mitchell undoubtedly has the knack of matching those with the right spirit.
(Some personal stand-outs were a 14-year-old Fino-finished Ardmore single malt from Cadenhead’s, a triple-distilled fresh sherry-matured Kilkerran, and a Longrow matured in Oloroso with a five-year finish in Manzanilla casks.)
