Longrow Cage Bottle 9yo Fresh Sherry

THE HOLY SPIRITS VIEW
One of Springbank’s wire-caged Duty Paid Samples, sold only at the distillery in Campbeltown. A single fresh sherry cask of Longrow, Springbank’s heavily peated style, bottled at cask strength from Warehouse 5, Rotation 4. Smoke and sherry in a young, brooding, uncompromising package.
 
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, reasonable enough given Islay sits in plain view across the water. It worked, and regular production has continued since 1992. Made at Springbank, with the same floor maltings and stills, but built to a much smokier blueprint.
 
THE WHISKY: DUTY PAID SAMPLE, LONGROW 9 YEAR OLD
Distilled 23 January 2015, bottled 25 October 2024, a single fresh sherry cask (Warehouse 5, Rotation 4). Cask strength, 56.4% ABV.
 
TASTING NOTES
Smoke first, thick and resinous, dark fruit pushing in fast: raisin, blackcurrant, a savoury tar note underneath. Damp bonfire ash, iodine, dried fig deepening with air. Palate rich and oily, smoked meat and treacle toffee meeting sherry sweetness, peat holding its ground firmly, clove and burnt orange peel threading through the middle. Dark chocolate late, bitter and pleasing. Finish long, smoke and sherry entwined, slow to fade. Brooding, proper Longrow.
 
Serve: Neat, in a Glencairn glass. Cask strength leaves room for a drop of water, but it’s worth tasting neat first to catch the smoke and sherry balance.