Month: January 2026

#70.2 A weekend in Campbeltown

Ending the whisky year with a bang (Part II)

 

TL; DR: After Glen Scotia and Kilkerran, we had two more whisky tastings lined up for the weekend. An unmissable Cadenhead’s Warehouse tasting, always interesting for its variety, and an excellent Watt Whisky tasting at the shop with Mark. Campbeltwon, we’ll be back. 

(missed Part 1?)

The Saturday morning was much quieter, helped by a gloomy weather: we cooked ourselves a big breakfast with eggs, bacon, and some bread. We then went for a (short) stroll, before going straight to the Cadenhead’s shop for our third tasting of the weekend: the Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting. We are almost veterans, having done it four (Teresa) and six (Gianluigi) times. Our host was Craig, and joining the tasting there were the two German guys we’d met the day before, and a group of five people (four guys and a lady) who were a tad too noisy, some clearly in hangover since the day before.

  • The casks lineup at Cadenhead’s!
  • The only decent picture of us at Cadenhead’s. Oh well.

The tasting started with an…English whisky! It was a 2019 Filey Bay from a Madeira cask, surprisingly naturally at a 47%abv. It was followed by a 14y Glen Garioch finished in rum cask (55%), very tropical as you can expect. Next, a 16y Glenallachie from a refill sherry butt, at a whooping abv of 63.5%. It was very pale, so probably a third fill? Fourth dram was a 15y Burnside(™) from a sherry hogshead (65.7%), before moving into the peat realm: a 15y Ledaig (51.8%) and an 11y Caol Ila (58.2%), both from bourbon casks, both delicious. Overall, a very interesting tasting, with a lot of different drams, and Craig did a great job despite the noisy crowd.

  • Ready to dram.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay and enjoy the 7th dram at the tasting room, because they were closing at 12.30 for the J&A Mitchell Christmas party. So, we took our drams “to go”, and went to the flat to cook ourselves the “pisarei e fasö”…We had a good portion, eating the whole half-kilo pack.

  • A big lunch, a taste of home.

After some rest, and a much needed coffee, we went out again for the final tasting of the weekend at the Watt Whisky shop, very kindly scheduled by Mark. We started with a couple of ex-bourbon cask Speysiders, one of Mark’s favourite styles, a 13y Inchgower (58.3%) and a 10y Aultmore (56.9%). Both delicious, and very different from each other: the first funkier and heavier, the latter more delicate. Then it was time for a 9y Campbeltown blended malt (57%), which may or may not be a tea-spooned Glen Scotia (for a deeper review of the dram check out Dramface). After that we got a pair: a 13y Benrinnes finished in an Armagnac cask (58%), paired with the 17y Chateau Laubade Armagnac (54.8%) that was in the cask before the whisky. This confirmed our taste for Armagnac casks in general (this Benrinnes in particular was delicious!), and that Armagnac itself is a spirit worth exploring more.

The tasting came to a close with a young and sherried 6y Staoisha (peated Bunnahabhain, 57%), a dram that always delivers. We could have listened to Mark talking about whisky for hours, but it was time to close the shop and so we left, happy.

  • Festive vibes at Watt Whisky shop.

The evening continued with a pint and a take-away from the Bangladesh Tandoori that we ate at the flat (great food, and abundant portions too). We went out for the evening, first at the Fiddler’s Inn and then at the Burnside: there were many Christmas parties around, so in both bars the atmosphere was fun and joyful. We had some nice chat with locals, who often looked at our drinks and guessed why we were in town: they must be used to whisky enthusiasts, we felt very welcomed. Campbeltown is such a cosy place!

Finally, Sunday came, time to leave and go back to reality. It was one of those miserable rainy days that you’d want to spend inside, maybe in front of a chimney with a book and a dram. Unfortunately, we had to drive a few hours, but in the end we got home safely (albeit without one of the wheel trim covers, a loss possibly caused by one of the many puddles we found on the road).

  • An excellent lineup, thanks Mark!

It was another great and very interesting whisky adventure, we had so many flavoursome drams! The Glen Scotia tasting went beyond our expectations, and potentially they might still have the same casks available at the time of writing (January 2026): since they only sell 20cl bottles, the turnover might be slow. It was also the case for the Kilkerran tasting, as some of the casks were the same as in April, despite the Campbeltown Malt Festival in between. Nonetheless, as even the new casks were very similar to the previous ones, so we might wait a bit before doing this tasting again. As expected, the two independent bottlers range was various and interesting. At Cadenhead’s, only one cask was still there since April, the Glenallachie, but while the abv hadn’t changed much, it was definitely more mellow the second time around. Because it was only the two of us, Mark could tailor the tasting around that, avoiding expressions we’d tried at a tasting at the Belfry (Edinburgh) back in March 2025. This latter was definitely a winner, something we’d repeat next time we’re in town. About our next time in Campbeltown, we might have big news for this year, but no spoilers just now.

Stay tuned to know about our next adventures, this time around about the other side of Scotland. Until then, slàinte mhath!

Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting

Price: £45.00 pp (December 2025)

Duration: 1hr (more like 1hr 30min)

Tasting: 6 drams from the cask, plus a dram at the Cadenhead’s Tasting Room, and a complimentary glass (high-stem copita)

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the drams

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.cadenhead.scot/

Watt Whisky Tasting

Price: £25.00 pp (December 2025)

Duration: 1hr (more like 1hr 30min)

Tasting: 6 drams

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: great

Highlights: Mark’s banter

Recommended: yes

Link: https://wattwhisky.com/

#70.1 A weekend in Campbeltown

Ending the whisky year with a bang (Part I)

 

TL; DR: Just before Christmas, we planned a relaxing long weekend in Campbeltown, where we did a few tastings. First off: Glen Scotia and Kilkerran, followed by a great walk on the hills behind the toon! It might become a fixed appointment… 

Happy new year! To all our readers, we hope your 2026 started in the best way possible. Ours did. As we write, we are back to work after a very relaxing 3-week break from the blog. That was needed, as the months preceding Christmas were particularly challenging, with work deadlines, etc. In that busy period, we only managed to fit a few quick escapes, nothing more than a weekend. This was until mid-December, when we set a few days aside for a proper long weekend away, and where better to go if not the Wee Toon itself, Campbeltown?

While Gianluigi visited the town last April with his pal Roberto, Teresa hadn’t been there since early July 2024…And even then, we only spent half a day there, leaving right after a cheeky Cadenhead’s tasting and lunch. So, a trip back was definitely due, at this point! We prepared Mr Vantastic a day or two in advance, and on the Thursday morning we left early, aiming to get there after lunch after the 4-and-a-half hours drive. This was to give us enough time to park the van and check in at our accommodation: being December, we didn’t want to take chances to stay in the van only to find terrible weather, so we got ourselves a small flat for the weekend. And besides, the two nearest campsites are about 4.5 miles from the town, one in Machrihanish and one in Peninver, too far to walk the distance after a tasting (or two). Along the way, we only had a break in Inveraray to get the usual morning roll at the George Hotel (this time not as good as usual), and to meet our pal Ivan: because of the wind, his seafood shack was closed, but we found him helping out a local stalker to process some venison. There we bought mince, fillets and square sausages that we ate back in Leith a few days later: everything was delicious! Back on the road, we arrived just past 2pm, in time to settle in the rented flat and go to our first tasting of the weekend. The flat was in a great location, right in between Cadenhead’s shop and Springbank, what could we ask more? Other than being a tad damp, it was perfect for our needs.

  • Ready to start the long weekend.

Our first tasting was at Glen Scotia distillery, and was the Warehouse Selection Tasting (but not in the warehouse, which at first we found odd). As we checked in, Greg told us we were the only ones attending, and the table was almost ready for us: the good thing of not doing the tasting in the warehouse is that we had one glass per dram, so we could take our time. After a cheeky browse of the shop, the tasting started. Greg took out the bottles one by one, so we couldn’t even guess “with our eyes” what was going to come. It was a great exploration of what Glen Scotia can do: from a purely ex-bourbon cask (10y, tropical bomb!) to a young Oloroso cask finished dram (6y), and another finish but in a refill PX cask (9y). We then moved on to a Port cask matured whisky (11y) and finished (you might guess) with a peated Glen Scotia, again matured only in an ex-bourbon cask (and again 11y): while the first dram was from a Heaven Hill barrel, this one was from a Jim Beam’s one. Overall, it was an excellent tasting, the drams were one better than the other, but the ex-bourbon cask duo won it for us. You can only buy one 20cl bottle per person, and we got one of these two (both £33, not cheap).

  • Our weekend started strong, great tasting!

Greg was a great host, very knowledgeable and nice: as we told him that we had visited the distillery all the way back in 2018, he briefly walked us in the distillery to show us the new mash tun. And we also met Archie, the distiller who had given us a super geeky tour in 2018.

  • The new mashtun!

Back from the tasting, we briefly stopped at the Springbank distillery shop: we needed to buy two cage bottles to complete the lineup of our next Edinburgh Whisky Group online tasting (6 bottles, all from the cage!). Cage bottles can be considered an equivalent of the “bottle-your-own” or “distillery cask” at other distilleries (without the crazy pricing of some), but they come up more randomly and you can only buy one per week (per person, so two in our case). For some reason (and the reason is “auctions”), the Springbank bottles tend to disappear quite quickly from the cage, while Hazelburn, Longrow (both produced at Springbank!) and Kilkerran (from Glengyle distillery) tend to stick around a bit more. Usually we don’t care, we like them all, but in this case we wanted to get a Springbank for the tasting. We weren’t lucky that day, but we got the other bottle at least. We stopped at the Washback bar for a cheeky dram before it closed (at 6pm), and we found Aly, always great to chat with. Next, we got something to eat (a very bad take-away on Longrow…the street) and went back to the flat for an early night. We woke up well rested, and after a big breakfast, we went to the Springbank shop again to get the second cage bottle: we got the last one available after queueing just before the shop opened: crazy! However, we were happy with the outcome, and now we cannot wait to share these drams with our pals!

After accomplishing this mission, we took advantage of the sunny morning to go on a hike. We went up to the hill behind the town, first to the Crosshill reserve, and then to a panoramic view, before getting lost in the woodland, but somehow managing to get back in time for lunch at the flat. We also prepared a sauce for the next day meal: pisarei e fasö, typical from Gianluigi’s hometown, which he brought back after a recent trip to Italy. We properly did it by preparing the sauce a day in advance to let it simmer.

  • Davaar island over there.
  • Almost at the top of the hill, before we got a bit lost in the woods.

We then went back to attend the Kilkerran Warehouse tasting, this time in the warehouse. It was the two of us and two younger German guys, other than the host Joyce, whom Gianluigi knew from his tasting with Roberto in April. We started with a 2006 vintage triple distilled followed by a 2005 (respectively from refill ex-bourbon barrel and hogshead) and a 2010 from a 1st fill barrel. The second half of the tasting consisted of two 2013 vintage drams, one from a Port pipe and one from a sherry hogshead, and a heavily peated expression, 2015 again from a 1st fill ex-bourbon barrel.

  • Beauties in the warehouse.

The type of lineup was exactly the same as the one in April (even if some of the casks changed in the meantime), which was a tad boring. Nonetheless, the drams were all very tasty, and it is always great to explore one of our favourite distilleries in such depth. The winner for us was the triple distilled, a tropical bomb! Just a shame they increased the price from £60 to £80 for a half-bottle (35cl), which is a bit pricey. After the tasting, we went back to the Washback bar for an extra dram, and then back to the flat. We got ready for our dinner at the Ardshiel Hotel: not only a great whisky bar, they do amazing food as well. We got ourselves a two courses festive menu (plus a cheeky dessert for Gianluigi) and then called it a night.

Stay tuned for the second part of our whisky trip in Campbeltown, coming next week. Until then, slàinte!

Glen Scotia Warehouse Selection Tasting

Price: £40.00 pp + £2 fee (December 2025)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: 5 Glen Scotia cask samples drams, 2015 1st fill ex-bourbon barrel Jim Beam (10y, 58.7%), 2019 Oloroso sherry finish (6y, 56.5%), 2016 refill PX sherry (9y, 59.9%), 2014 Ruby port finish (11y, 57.1%), 2014 Heavily peated 1st fill ex-bourbon Heaven Hill (11y, 57.6%)

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the drams and the cosy shop/tasting room

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.glenscotia.com/

Kilkerran Warehouse Tasting

Price: £40.00 pp (December 2025)

Duration: 1hr

Tasting: 6 Kilkerran drams from the cask, 2006 triple distilled refill ex-bou brl (56.3), 2005 refill ex-bou hhd (54.4%), 2010 1st fill ex-bou brl (57.5%), 2013 Port pipe (55.8%), 2013 refill sherry hhd (58.5%), 2015 heavily peated 1st fill ex-bou brl (58.1%)

Target: whisky enthusiasts

Value for money: great

Highlights: the drams

Recommended: yes, but do it once

Link: https://kilkerran.scot/