Information from distillery web page
Springbank Distillery is unique. It is the oldest independent family owned distillery in Scotland. Founded in 1828 on the site of Archibald Mitchell's illicit still, the Springbank Distillery is now in the hands of his great great great grand son, Hedley G. Wright.
Owned by Mr Wright's J&A Mitchell & Co Ltd, Springbank is the only distillery in Scotland to carry out the full production process on the one site. 100% of the traditional floor malting, maturation and bottling is done at the distillery in Campbeltown.
It produces the most hand made whisky in Scotland, with traditional production methods being used throughout the process, and human involvement at each and every stage.
It is the only distillery in Scotland to have never chill-filtered, nor do we add any artificial colourings to any of our single malts.
It is the only distillery in Scotland to produce three different single malts, Springbank, Longrow and Hazelburn, using three different production methods.
Longrow C.V.
Having long been a fan of the malts produced under the Springbank name, when I saw this in my local off licence, I just had to check it out. The original Longrow distillery closed in 1896 & was on a site adjoining the Springbank distillery, who first released malts under the Longrow name in 1985 ( Springbank first distilled Longrow in 1973-4).
This brand is double distilled from heavily peated malt to produce a whisky with the character of an Islay whisky (Ardbeg, Bruichladdich, Caol Isla etc.), & by having it's own maltings, Springbank can achieve the right amount of peatiness.
Longrow C.V. (Curriculum Vitae) is a vatted malt comprising of vattings of 6, 10 & 14 year old whiskies, I'm guessing that the idea is to introduce new customers to the Longrow house style - hence the C.V. part of the name. It also contains no artificial colouring (caramel etc.) & is not chill filtered.
I'm sitting here with a glass of the malt, holding it up to the light to check the colour (this is my third glass as I want to be professional & get it right) & I have to agree with Michael Jackson's Malt whisky companion, it's kind of straw coloured. Carrying on with my newly acquired studied demeanour, I next stick my nose into the glass (Nosing) & after several sniffs I get past the smoky peat, I find fudge, but now I'm a touched confused - have you ever made or had homemade fudge & it's lovely but a little grainy, that's what I smell.
Now the important bit . Taste, as a heavily peated single malt you expect it to be full of peat & Smokey flavours reminiscent of Applewood smoked Cheddar heading almost into smoked Haddock (that mineral, tin ? like element), but what hits first is how sweet it is, yet not cloyingly so. Because before the sweetness hits overkill, I would say the peat comes in to balance it, what I mean, is this stunning spicy peaty gorgeousness clubs your senses reducing the sweetness to almost the backing choir. The finish has that vanilla fudge but it's sharing bed space with the peat which has a dry ginger pepperiness to it, which is a bit like when you were a kid & you put a 9 volt battery on your tongue ( Don't try this at home, I am a trained professional *) it's that sense of metallic, but in a good way.
Springbank won Whisky magazine's, Icons of whisky - Scotland whisky distiller of the year 2010.
Longrow C.V.
Producers: Springbank Distillers Ltd.
Bottled by: Distillery ( Springbank ).
ABV: 46% .
Vatted from 6, 10, 14 year old malts, aged in rum, sherry, port, bourbon casks.
Non chill filtered, no colour added.
District: Argyle.
Region: Campletown.
Longrow (Springbank distillery)
*The Parrish Lantern, will not be held liable for anyone attempting to - lick, chew, eat or in any way treat a 9 volt battery as something comestible.
No comments:
Post a Comment