Longrow RS/RB 10yo (cage bottle) duty paid sample

THE HOLY SPIRITS VIEW

A Longrow cage bottle, one of Springbank’s Duty Paid Samples sold only at the distillery in Campbeltown, one bottle per person per week. A single cask of Longrow, Springbank’s heavily peated style, bottled at ten years old at cask strength. The twist is its two-stage maturation: refill sherry first, then moved into a refill bourbon cask in 2023, so the peat and spirit lead.

THE DISTILLERY

Longrow was first distilled in 1973 as an experiment: Springbank’s chairman set out to prove an Islay-style peated malt could be made on the Kintyre mainland. It worked, and regular production has continued since 1992. Made at Springbank, with the same floor maltings and stills, to a much smokier blueprint.

THE WHISKY: DUTY PAID SAMPLE, LONGROW 10 YEAR OLD

Distilled 30 January 2015 and bottled at ten years old. Matured in refill sherry, then filled into a refill bourbon cask in 2023. Cask strength, 54.7% ABV.

TASTING NOTES

Peat smoke first, brine, sooty and mineral, vanilla pod, a lick of lemon peel, soft dried fruit from the sherry far behind. Oily on the palate straight away, smoked sea salt, barley sugar, orchard fruit, cracked pepper building through the middle, a trace of toffee. Refill wood keeps the sherry quiet, the peat holds centre stage. Finish long, smoke and salt lingering with a little sweetness underneath.

Serve: Neat, in a Glencairn glass, with a few drops of water to open the fruit at this strength.