Side by side: Glen Scotia back in time...

@GlenScotiaMalts has been distilling since 1832 but has had at least 5 periods of closure in it's history.

Callum @glen_scotia & Kate @kccjf have built up a collection of older bottlings and decided to do a bottle split of some of them!

First a little history...

Built in 1832 Scotia, as the distillery was know, was built by the town's Dean of Guild James Stewart and Provost John Galbraith. It obtained it's Licence to Distil in 1835 by which time it was one of the 29 thriving Distilleries in Campbeltown, Alfred Barnard visited as research for his book published in 1887.

It was enlarged and rebuilt 1897 under the ownership of Duncan McCallum including the imposing building we see on High Street today.

In 1919 it joined 5 other Campbeltown distilleries to form West Highland Malt Distilleries in an attempt to share costs and stave off potential closure. Unfortunately this didn't work, the Drumlemble Colliery closed in 1923 ending cheap local fuel supplies and by 1924 only Scotia was left and was re-acquired by Duncan MacCallum. 

The Great Depression and Prohibition also played their part so that by 1929 only three distilleries remained open in Campbeltown: Scotia, Springbank and Ri-Clachan. The 20th March 1930 saw the last production at Scotia before the distillery and Campbeltown fell silent.

Bloch Bros bought the distillery in 1933, reopened it and added ‘Glen’ to the name. By 1934 Ri-Clachan had closed its doors and the once thriving whisky capital of the world had only two distilleries remaining but neither were distilling regularly until 1935.

In 1954 the distillery was sold to Hiram Walker of Canada but soon then sold on to A. Gillies & Co. who were acquired by Amalgamated Distilled Products (ADP) in 1970. 

1971

1971

Another period of closure happened between 1973-77 for a renovation and rebuilding. In 1983 the distillery became part of supermarket tycoon James Gulliver’s Argyll Group. 

The distillery closed once more in 1984. Gibson International bought ADP’s distilling interests and reopened the distillery in 1989, 5 years later the Gibson’s whisky interests were bought by Glen Catrine Bonded Warehouse Ltd (owners of Loch Lomond distillery since 1986) which promptly mothballed Glen Scotia once more.

1990

The distillery worked intermittently with the help of staff from Springbank distillery until 1999, when it returned to fully staffed production. Glen Catrine was sold in 2014 to private equity firm Exponent whose new distilling division, Loch Lomond Group, is headed by former Diageo executives. Then in 2019 Chinese equity firm Hillhouse Capital bought out Exponent.

An attempt at capturing the history but lots of dates change in different sources!

A few of us joined in a Zoom session to enjoy the older bottlings and share our thoughts.

Dram	12yo	Tesco 12yo	14yo Green Dumpy	1992 The MacPhail's Collection [G&M]	10yo Legends of Scotia #1 Picture House	10yo Legends of Scotia #2 Muirfield - 3rd Green
Characteristics	40% ABV	40% ABV	40% ABV	43% ABV	50% ABV	50% ABV
Approx year distilled	1996	1980	Late 1970's?	1992	2004	2004
My thoughts:
Appearance
	Mid gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thin line, bead up and fall as slow oily legs.	Pale gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thick line, bead up and fall as thick fast legs.	Dark gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thin line, bead up slowly and fall as thin oily legs.	Light gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thick line, bead up and fall as slow thick legs.	Pale gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thick line form thick beads and fall as slow thick legs.	Pale gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thick line form thick beads and fall as slow thick legs.
Nose	Orchard fruit, sea breeze, a little citrus	Nail varnish, pears, pineapple, banana, passionfruit and a little salt.	A faint musty bookshop note with pears, citrus, green apples, and marzipan.	Lactic baby sick, orchard fruit, maritime breeze and a little peat smoke. Unpleasant!	Salted caramel, smoky bacon and tropical fruit - this is closer to the peated Glen Scotia of today.	I expected this to be the same as the Picture House but it's different - tropical fruit and seaweed with citrus zest.
Palate	Smooth spicy arrival, thin but oily. Orchard fruit, honey and a little citrus.	Thick oily arrival, tropical fruit from the nose, honey and a spicy pepper bite.	Surprisingly thick for 40% ABV, a little salinity, tropical fruit, walnuts, almonds, vanilla, a little smoke and a peppery spice.	Thin salty arrival, chewy toffee, golden syrup and some tropical fruit. Drying feta cheese as the liquid disappears.	Thick sweet arrival, tropical fruit, sea spray, peppery spice followed by a blanket of peat smoke and drying icing sugar.	Sweet thick arrival, tropical fruit, honey, dried seaweed, sour citrus followed by that blanket of peat smoke. No real spice.
Finish	Short fruity with a little peppery spice.	Long spicy finish with a little honey.	Long spicy finish, honey and almonds.	Medium length fruit and cheese.	Lingering sweet dry smoke and a peppery spice.	Lingering tropical fruit, salt and smoke.
Overall	The first 12yo we tried was one of the last bottles to show the distillery being founded in 1835, this has now been changed to 1832. A little thin and missing a lot of the DNA we'd expect from Glen Scotia today. The Tesco 12yo is an unusual dram, little or no information can be found on where it came from, possibly a parcel of casks bought up when the distillery was closed? This showed some of the oily nature we expect today along with tropical fruit notes. The 14yo was the oldest we tried, distilled sometime in the late 60's a thick mouthfeel, tropical fruit, salinity and a little peat smoke still give hints of what we try today. The MacPhail's was not a nice dram, probably bought as new make spirit and matured away from Campbeltown it didn't share any traits of what we expect from a modern Glen Scotia. The Legends of Scotia pair were the most modern bottles dating back to 2004, they are easily recognisable as Glen Scotia. I was expecting them to be the same liquid in different bottles but they had some quite different tasting notes. A huge pleasure to try some Glen Scotia history - many thanks to Callum & Kate for sharing!

2021

Identify the parts of the distillery

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