Side by side : Scapa old and new

Ask anyone to name a distillery on Orkney and 99% of them won't say Scapa first, it's very much under the radar and only opened to visitors in 2015. Most of the output is for Chivas Brothers blends but single malt bottling are available.

Here I've got two to try, an old one and the latest!

Scapa distillery was built in 1885 by a Blender from Glasgow called John Townsend. It overlooks the Scapa Flow where the German Fleet was scuttled in 1919.

As with many distilleries it changed hands a number of times before being bought by Hiram Walker in 1954. It was rebuilt in 1959 including the installation of the now only remaining Lomond Still. It is used as a Wash Still but the plates were removed in 1978 (Note: Loch Lomond's straight necked Stills are not Lomond Stills).

Allied Distillers bought Hiram Walker in  in 1987 but the distillery was mothballed in 1994. Production restarted on a small scale in 1997 using staff from nearby Highland Park distillery. A huge refurbishment took place in 2004 and a distillery single malt released for the first time. Chivas Brothers (Pernod Ricard) bought the distillery in 2005, and a visitor's centre finally opened in 2015.

Distillery Manager Brian MacAulay cuts down the "No Visitors" sign. Photo: Pernod Ricard

A stainless steel Semi Lauter mash tun is used to make the unpeated wash, eight stainless steel washbacks ferment the wash for up to 70 hours. A Lomond style Wash still and Spirit still, using shell and tube condensers, distil a new make to around 72% ABV.

Lomond Wash Still. Photo: Undiscovered Scotland

Let's compare an older distillery release the 16yo with the current bottling the NAS Skiren.

The 16yo was released in 2008 replacing the 14yo which itself replaced the 12yo. So my thinking is the next release should be an 18yo but no, in 2016 it was replaced by a pair of NAS releases - Skiren and Glansa (finished in casks that previously held peated whisky), it looks like the Glansa has now been discontinued too.

 

Dram	16yo (2008-2016 RIP)	Skiren (2015-)
Characteristics	40% ABV Coloured & chill-filtered	40% ABV Coloured & chill-filtered
Distillery notes	Aged in Orkney for 16 years this golden malt delivers a sweet and silky smooth heather-honey taste, perfectly balanced with delicate spice	Nose: Delicate scented floral flavours with a hint of fresh pear. Sweet and fruity pineapple notes with a citrus tang. Taste: Smooth and sweet, ripe honeydew melon slices, bursts of fruity pear and lemon sherbet. Finish: Long, refreshing, shimmering sweetness.
My thoughts:
Appearance
	Pale gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thin line, slowly bead up and fall as slow thick legs.	Pale gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thin line, bead up and fall as quick thin legs.
Nose	Sweet heathery honey, tropical fruit and citrus notes. Some floral notes.	Floral notes to the fore, some tropical fruit and the heathery honey from it's older sibling.
Palate	Spicy arrival, slightly watery but giving a sweet mouthcoating effect. The heathery honey and tropical fruit from the nose are here - dried pineapple and peach with some ginger spice. Nice but a little thin.	Again a little thin and watery but with loads of fruit - the mouthcoating effect isn't there and the spice is very much reduced. What's replacing it is loads of sweetness - honey, brown sugar and tropical fruit. There's some citrus and a nice drying peach note.
Finish	Short fruity finish with a little ginger spice.	Medium length ginger spice with tropical fruit notes.
Overall	I'm guessing the Skiren is a younger version of the 16yo, they share a lot of characteristics but the youngster adds more citrus and spice on the palate. Both are very thin on the palate - I'm sure the 40% ABV and chill filtering probably does this, an increase to 46% would improve these drams immensely. They aren't doing much to showcase what the distillery is capable of but as most of the spirit does into blends maybe they aren't bothered? There are some distillery exclusive single casks you can buy which would better show the distillery character, but they are fairly expensive.