The Scotch whisky landscape of the 17th and 18th centuries was plagued with black market distilleries trying to evade taxes first imposed by Parliament in 1644. For the next 150 years, smuggling would be the main force driving the industry, and a hub of such activity was Campbeltown, Scotland, where Archibald Mitchell went from underground distiller to upstanding founder of Springbank.
In many ways, the story of Springbank reflects the modern history of Scotch whisky. By the early 1600s, the Mitchell family had already arrived and had become a key player in Campbeltown’s whisky smuggling ring, with some members of the family working as maltsters in the region. In 1825, Archibald became a partner and whisky maker at the illegal Rieclachan Distillery, and three years later, he and his brother Hugh lawfully founded Springbank.
Today, some bartenders place Springbank Scotch among the highest-regarded whiskies in the category — largely due to the distillery’s low yield and singularly grassroots distilling methods. In its nearly 200-year history, Springbank has seen considerable evolution, so here are seven things to know about the storied Scotch distillery.
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Springbank is situated in one of the most historic whisky-making regions of Scotland.
Campbeltown was at the heart of Scotland’s black market whisky scene in the 17th century. A number of laws significantly lowered the excise tax on the spirit and led distilleries to open lawfully in the early 1800s. By 1814, 22 legal distilleries were operating in Campbeltown. When the Mitchell brothers founded Springbank in 1828, they opened on a historic site: the exact location where Archibald’s formerly illicit still once operated.
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The Mitchell family is still somewhat involved with the brand.
Throughout the following centuries, ownership of Springbank was passed down to descendants of the Mitchells. Archibald’s sons John and William took the helm in 1837. John’s own son Alexander later joined the business and formed J & A Mitchell, Springbank’s parent company, along with his father. After centuries of Mitchell ownership, in 2023 Archibald’s great-great grandson Hedley G. Wright passed away, leaving ownership of the distillery to three trusts. Now, Wright’s son — also Archibald’s great-great-great grandson — is a member of the company’s board of directors, holding onto the family’s ties to Springbank.
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Springbank withstood a period of mass closures.
In the 1920s, Campbeltown’s whisky industry boom of the early 1800s began to sour. A major rise in desire for Scotch came at the turn of the century, and Campbeltown distilleries began to sacrifice the quality of their product to meet demand. The dip in production standards caused the distilleries to lose business and close down. In 1934, Rieclachan Distillery shuttered, making Springbank and Glen Scotia the only two still-operating distilleries in the region.
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Springbrank is among the few distilleries that malt their barley on-site.
According to the Edinburgh Whisky Academy, only nine Scotch distilleries malt their own barley on-premesis. Springbank is one of them, and it is the sole producer that malts 100 percent of its barley in-house. The distillery also performs the task in the traditional way, known as floor malting. That malting process involves slowly germinating barley seeds along a floor’s surface by gently spritzing water over them, rather than steeping them entirely. Springbank’s commitment to the laborious,old-school process is a testament to its long history.
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Its portfolio offers three malt whiskies.
The brand’s lineup of single malt Scotches is made up of Springbank, Longrow, and Hazelburn. What distinguishes each is the number of distillations it undergoes. Longrow is distilled twice, and Hazelburn is distilled three times. Springbank, on the other hand, is distilled two and a half times, halting the third distillation halfway through. In an interview with The New York Times, marketing director for Springbank David Allen admitted he doesn’t know why the brand’s eponymous product undergoes such a head-scratching distillation process. “We don’t know. We’re simply following our process. We don’t want anything to change in our whisky,” he told The Times.
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It’s the one of the few Scotch distilleries to perform 100 percent of its whiskey-making on-site.
Springbank prides itself on performing 100 percent of the distillation process on-site. Each stage — malting, fermenting, aging, and bottling — is done at the Campbeltown campus. Where most other distilleries cut corners by outsourcing commercial barley and yeast, Springbank conducts the whole process locally. It purchases barley from nearby farms and uses its own yeast for fermentation.
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In yield, Springbank is a small fish in a big pond.
Some of the most popular Scotch distilleries like Glenfiddich and The Macallan — Springbank’s competitors — sell tens of millions of bottles each year, according to a New York Times report. Springbank, due to its time- and labor-intensive distillation process, has a much smaller yield. Until 2018, the distillery produced about 120,000 bottles annually, but it scaled up its production a bit to around 200,000 bottles in recent years.
