A recent auction win that I couldn't resist! A 10-year old Springbank that has been fully matured in Fijian rum casks, bottled for the distillery's Open Day during the Campbeltown Festival in May 2024.
Firstly, let's address the half-sized elephant in the room. For those obsessed with sizes, yes this is a 350ml bottle, and so were the other two Springbank products that were bottled for this year's Open Day. I have absolutely no objection to this whatsoever, and if you're a whisky fan that intends to drink and enjoy rather than flip for profit, neither should you! There are a few important benefits here. The half-bottle means there are more to go around, with 2,200 bottles only available from the distillery shop during the Open Day, and limited to one per person. Obviously that would've been halved if it had been bottled in 700ml format, which in theory means that more people will get to taste & enjoy this whisky than they would've otherwise. Secondly, it means the bottles are cheaper from the original seller, retailing for just £35. Thirdly, it means they're a much less attractive proposition for the flippers that have tried their hardest to bastardise Springbank over the last few years. That point makes me a little hypocritical since I'm perpetuating the problem. I purchased this very bottle from a secondary market auction site here in Australia, which someone had obviously flipped for profit, and I paid significantly more than that original price of roughly $70 AUD. So they got what they wanted. I paid $160 for this 350ml bottle, but considering what it is, where it came from, and the relative rarity in this part of the world, I don't think that's unreasonable. For those playing overseas, the standard core range Springbank 10-year old at 46% retails at $220-250 AUD here. Yes I said "retails", that's not secondary pricing! Which is utterly ridiculous, and it's just not worth the money anymore. The core range 12-year old from Springbank's sister distillery Glengyle, also owned by J&A Mitchell and producing Kilkerran single malt, is far more reasonable thanks to a different distributor here in Australia, but I'll concede that it's also not as popular. It should be, but never mind that for now. Moving right along!
Springbank's Open Day occurs during the Campbeltown Festival, which is Campbeltown's equivalent of the Feis Ile over on Islay, which usually starts on the day that the Campbeltown Festival ends. Springbank, Glengyle/Kilkerran, and Glen Scotia all have their open days with special tastings and events, and all bottle special releases to mark the occasion. Just like Feis Ile, this means the town of Campbeltown is inundated with thirsty whisky folk, booking out the small town's accommodation and transport services, and queuing for hours to get their hands on a bottle of something special. And just like Feis Ile, many of those bottles are promptly sent to the various auction sites to be flipped for profit. Glen Scotia take a similar approach to Laphroaig or Ardbeg for their commemorative bottling, choosing to do a much larger worldwide release that tends to be something different from their normal core range. Kilkerran and Springbank's releases are much smaller, but are generally not single casks. This year's Kilkerran was the first 20-year old single malt, since the distillery opened in May 2004. It was initially matured in rum casks for 10-years followed by another 10-years in ex-bourbon casks, and retailed for £140. These days Springbank release three bottlings for each Campbeltown Festival, one for each of their single malts; the namesake Springbank, the unpeated and triple-distilled Hazelburn, and the heavily peated and double-distilled Longrow. All are labelled as Open Day bottlings, with fairly nondescript white labels and plain glass bottles rather than the brands' usual packaging. For 2024 the Hazelburn was an 8-year old Bourbon cask & Oloroso sherry cask matured, and the Longrow was a 16-year old that was matured in Ruby port casks. And the Springbank that we're looking at here is a 10-year old that was fully matured in rum casks and bottled at 57.1% ABV.
Springbank's namesake spirit is distilled from the distillery's floor malted barley that is lightly peated to roughly 15 ppm, and it's distilled a sum total of 2.5-times thanks to a complex system where some of the feints - the undesirable part that comes through late in the distillation after the spirit cut has been taken - from the second / intermediate still are distilled a third time in the distillery's third still. See image above for a handy diagram that (slightly) helps! One of my all-time favourite Springbanks was a 14-year old "Cage Bottling" that was fully matured in a refill rum cask - see here for that review. So when I spotted that this 2024 Open Day bottling was fully matured in rum casks, my interest was piqued. I didn't love the 15-year old Rum Cask bottling from 2018, so I wasn't going to go silly on it when a few bottles popped up at auction, just in case. There's an interesting point of difference here though. For the first time, Springbank has specified where these rum casks came from. While they haven't specified the exact distillery that was responsible for the casks' previous incumbent, they've told us that they came from Fiji in the South Pacific. There's only one rum distillery in this small island nation; South Pacific Distilleries, which is found in the city of Lautoka near the north-west coast of Fiji's main island. Trading as Rum Co. of Fiji, their aged rums are sold under the brands Bati or Ratu. The Ratu brand is made from Fijian molasses and is distilled in both column and pot stills, and is aged for at least 5-years in American oak ex-bourbon barrels. A couple of this distillery's rums have been bottled and sold by Cadenhead's, the independent bottler that is owned by J&A Mitchell, Springbank's owners. So it all makes sense. I'm yet to try any Fijian rum, but from what I can see they tend to be quite heavy in style, with parallels drawn to Jamaican and other Caribbean rums. Let's see what effect they've had on this little 10-year old Springbank, shall we?
Bottled for Campbeltown Festival 2024, fully matured in Fijian rum casks. 2,200 x 350ml bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.
Colour: Pale gold.
Nose: Juicy, herbal, sweet, nippy. Pineapple juice, white pepper, green chilli flakes, paw paw (papaya) in syrup. Dried leafy herbs, brown sugar, fried bananas. Szechuan pepper, pear drops, yeasty bread dough, lemon peel. Honey & aniseed around the edges.
Texture: Medium weight, just. Sweet, fruity, juicy. And quite hot.
Taste: The rum influence is obvious, sweet & funky. Overripe tropical fruit, caramelised brown sugar, more Szechuan pepper. Pineapple juice & jalapeno chillies. Honey, lemon peel, and a bit of vanilla cream heading into the finish.
Finish: Medium length. Vanilla cream & lemon peel carry through, with more sugary rum sweetness. White pepper, pineapple juice, jalapeno chilli flakes, and malt biscuits. Overripe tropical fruity and a touch of drying sea salt to round things out.
Score: 3 out of 5.
Notes: Quite sweet and very rum cask-driven, a little too much so for my tastes. I don't mind a good Caribbean molasses rum on occasion, and I love a peated malt matured in a rum cask, but these rum casks feel too sugary and too assertive, and too dominant. They've killed off the Springbank distillery character, which has then simplified the whole experience. The whisky seems quite raw and young as well, maybe more so than the 5-year old Society bottling that was released a couple of years ago - which was the same ABV! It's certainly a different style of Springbank which is probably why they chose to bottle it for the Open Day, but it also could've passed for a younger Hazelburn. It's not a complete miss mind you, this is a flavoursome dram, and I'm sure fans of sweeter & lighter rums would enjoy it more. But personally when I'm having a Springbank, I want it to taste like a Springbank!
This makes two rum cask Springbank releases that haven't blown me away, one that I liked much more (the old brown label bottling mentioned above) and one (a cage bottle, admittedly) refill rum cask that is still one of my all-time favourites. There was also a delicious Longrow Open Day bottling a few years ago, but I'mtalking about the Springbank make here. I've never thought rum casks were as "hit and miss" as some others proclaim, but maybe that's because I've mainly enjoyed heavily peated whiskies that had spent some time in rum casks - where the casks are more easily kept at bay by a more assertive spirit character. But Springbank is hardly a wallflower... More research required!
Cheers!
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