Distillery Visit - Glengyle (Kilkerran)

I visited the Glengyle distillery in April '18, this was my first time!

Glengyle is in Campbeltown at the bottom of the Kintyre Peninsula, about 3 hours drive from Glasgow.

 Glengyle was founded in 1872 by one of the Mitchel brothers, who owned Springbank, when he fell out with his brother. Unlike Springbank Glengyle changed hands a couple of times in the early 1900s before production finally ceased altogether in 1925. In late 2000 the building were bought once again by the Springbank team and restoration started. By early 2002 all the work had been completed and  Second hand stills and distillation equipment were sourced from from Ben Wyvis Distillery. In March 2004 the first spirit ran from the Stills.

The Glengyle distillery name couldn't be used for the name of the whisky because it's used by Loch Lomond for a blended Highland malt and they wanted too much to sell it. Instead they use the Kilkerran name which was "derived from the Gaelic ‘Ceann Loch Cille Chiarain’ which is the name of the original settlement where Saint Kerran had his religious cell and where Campbeltown now stands."

The distillery is a short 2 minute walk from the Springbank distillery, you can read about my visit here!

The view through the hole in the wall where

the Distillery gets its logo from!

The distillery is only in production for two months of the year, and it wasn't whilst I was there - so it seemed a little quiet.

The barley is malted at Springbank and
tractored over to Glengyle for milling.
They have a Vickers mill rather than a Porteus.

A stainless steel semi lauter Mash Tun is used to mix the grist and hot water.

They have a 8 hour mash cycle using 3 sets of hot water.

Four 30,000 litre larch Washbacks are used for fermentation

The Washbacks are really tall, a typical
fermentation last up to 110 hours.

From below

Wash Still

Inside the Wash Still

The Spirit Safe needs a polish!

Production all on one floor

A little more modern technology than Springbank

Once filled, the casks are transported to Springbank distillery, by tractor, for maturation.

Then it's back to the Cadenhead Shop
for a wee tasting!

And some samples to take home!

 Thank you very much to Mhairi and the whole Springbank / Glengyle team for a really interesting visit, next time I hope to visit when you are making whisky!

For 2018 Glen Scotia think they'll be operating around October, but it's worth checking with the friendly team there if you are planning a special visit!

Here's my road trip video: