Our In Focus series offers you a deep dive into some of the distilleries featured across our store. This instalment comes courtesy of Geraldo's Whisky Ambassador, James Gillies, and features a few trivia questions for those in the know!
Q1: Why do the expressions not use ‘Glengyle’ as the brand?
After a fall-out with his brother, William Mitchell left Springbank and, in 1872, founded his own distillery, Glengyle, close by.
Q2: What did the brothers fall out over?
After closing in 1925, the buildings were re-purposed over the years, until in 2000, Hedley Wright, owner of Springbank and a relation to William Mitchell, acquired the buildings, and instructed that it be re-instated as a fully operational distillery once more.
One of the reasons for doing so, was that Campbeltown’s status as a whisky-producing “region” was at risk, as the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) was working on codifying the geographical indications into EU Law, and were of the opinion that two operational distilleries weren’t enough to justify “regional” status. Mr. Wright argued that, as the Lowland ‘region’ only had three active distilleries at that time, having Glengyle operational again would pacify the SWA.
Q3: Can you name the three active distilleries in the Lowland 'region' in 2000?
With Glengyle Distillery becoming active, again, in 2004, Campbeltown does have [so-called] “regional” status and, like Islay, is a ‘protected locality’.
Q4: What’s unusual about the spirit still at Glengyle?
Although the output of ‘Kilkerran’ is low (~200,000 LPA), due to the distillery only being operational for three months of the year, the quality is exceptional, and the expressions range from lightly peated, highly peated, cask strength and even triple distilled.
You can see our Kilkerran (and Springbank) stock here.
Hear from Stephen Kelly about the rebuilding of Mitchell's Glengyle Distillery -
Trivia answers:
