Springbank Society Newsletter
December 2020
It’s that time of year again where “All I want for Christmas is… Whisky”
Well we can all agree that 2020 has been one to remember. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our Society members for your continued support, even through a global pandemic. Hopefully 2021 will let us see some of you in person again.
This month we have an update on upcoming releases, information on the greatly anticipated next society bottling and a round-up of distillery news, letting you know what has been happening in Campbeltown over the last few months.
Distillery News
In early September we finished with the last filling at Springbank and, after a couple of weeks of preparation, moved up to Glengyle and began producing Kilkerran in its various guises. The move up to Glengyle always signals the end of summer and the start of autumn for us, and we have been fortunate that the processes and procedures we have put in place to keep our staff safe from the spread of COVID have worked well and all our operations have proceeded as normally as can be expected in the current environment. We will continue to produce up at Glengyle until the 18th of December, which marks the final day of the working year before our Christmas holiday.
One of the biggest developments in the last 3 months has been the commissioning of our new warehouse, as after receiving clearance from the local council and approval from HMRC we were able to get the first quarter of the new warehouse racked and the first casks stowed – hooray! This new warehouse will be called ‘Warehouse 8’ as it sits between Warehouses 7, 9 and what was warehouse 10 (now dispatch) – very creative, eh? With a capacity of near 7,000 casks, it will help us to continue with our increased production output, as well as bringing more casks on site for Cadenhead’s.
Our maltings have continued to run constantly since we returned, helping to supply malt for Glengyle as well as giving us a head start at Springbank when we return in January. The bottling operations have been incredibly busy since we returned, with products being bottled and shipped to try to ‘catch up’ with the 4 months of lockdown we missed and to get new products out to our customers around the world.
Sales Team Events
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak, all sales team events have been suspended. We will follow government guidelines and hope to be back on the road visiting as many of you as possible soon. In the meantime we are planning an exciting online Society tasting event which will be held in early 2021. Look out for details being announced in January.
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
Although the sales team have been grounded in Campbeltown we hope that you enjoyed our trip to the online world with our virtual malts festival, we know we did. Our sales team continues to look for when they can do the next tasting (I think they are missing being out on the road) so keep your eyes peeled for any upcoming events.
If there is anything you would like to see from us in the meantime please get in touch.
Springbank sales team coming to your screens soon…that might be more of a Christmas nightmare than a miracle.
New Distillery Releases
We made the most of our last few months of the year and released some cracking whiskies, the Springbank 17yo Madeira and the first ever Kilkerran 16yo being two of our highlights.
You will be pleased to hear we have some more exciting releases lined up for 2021.
February/ March 2021
Springbank 10yo Local Barley
Later than the regular Local Barley release date, our next edition has been bottled and will be dispatched across the world in the New Year.
Springbank 25yo
The casks for our next Springbank 25yo release have been selected and will be bottled in early 2021.
Longrow Red 10yo Refill Malbec
Our next expression of Longrow Red is also due to be released in early 2021. It has spent its final three years in refill Malbec barriques from the De Toren Private Cellar in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Kilkerran 8yo Cask Strength
We are sure our Kilkerran fans will be excited to know that the next Kilkerran 8yo has been fully matured in Oloroso casks. Some of you may have had the chance to try it during our Kilkerran online tasting. This will also be available in early 2021.
Next Society Bottling
Yes, the next greatly anticipated society bottling has been chosen, vatted and scheduled for bottling. We can reveal that it is a Springbank 8yo fully matured in fresh oloroso hogsheads, bottled at cask strength.
We plan to release it on the Society Portal in early 2021. We will send an email closer to the time with details of this and our planned online tasting. Please ensure that you can log in to your account prior to the release date: https://experience.springbank.scot/.
Christmas Closure
The distilleries and our office will be closed from Friday 18th December until Monday 4th January. We look forward to catching up with you all in 2021.
Slàinte Mhath!
The Springbank Team
TO JOIN THE SOCIETY CONTACT THEM AT society@springbank.scot
