Side by side : MoM Campbeltown 8yo

Tea-spooned Campbeltown malts from @MasterOfMalt, what's not to like?  Part of a new range of reasonably priced 'Exclusives'.

Lets try them!

Master Of Malt are one of the biggest UK online whisky retailers, along with the likes of That Boutique-y Whisky Company and Drinks by the Dram they are owned by Atom Brands. Back in August '22 they started selling their own bottlings featuring a smart plain white label featuring a map of Scotland and a large age statement number. Most of these name the distillery but some are 'Secret' and some are Blended Malts.

They have released two bottles labelled Campbeltown 8, for just under £40 each, lets see what we can find out about them? There's no batch, edition or release numbers on the labels so without looking closely at the dates and number of bottles you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference.

These bottles are labelled as "Blended Malt Scotch Whisky", the website talks about them being tea-spooned - this usually means a cask of single malt to which a small amount (a tea spoon) of another distillery's malt has been added. Now just because it says it's teaspooned doesn't necessarily mean it has been - contractually the distillery selling the cask want's it's name withheld but who adds the teaspoon - we just don't know. The spirit is no longer legally a single malt whisky and cannot then be attributed to its originating distillery. Now a teaspoon of any whisky added to a whole cask of another is not going to make any discernible difference to it, so these are single malts to all intends and purposes!

 

Campbeltown was once home to nearly 40 distilleries, the Victorian Whisky Capital of the World. Soon they'll be 5 distilleries in the town but 8 years ago they would only have been 3 producing whisky: Glen Scotia, Springbank and Glengyle Kilkerran. So we can safely guess that these bottles were from one of these three distilleries with maybe a teaspoon of another in it. I'd guess that the scarcity and price of Springbank casks wouldn't allow MoM to sell these bottles for £40, so I'm assuming they are from Glen Scotia or Glengyle Kilkerran?

Let's try them and see if we can work it out? 

Dram	2014 8yo	2014 8yo
Characteristics	57% ABV NCF, Natural colour D: Mar '14, B: Oct '22 372 bottles Refill hogshead - Oloroso octave - refill hogshead	54.9% ABV NCF, Natural colour D: Apr '14, B: Feb '23 365 bottles Refill hogshead - Oloroso octave - refill hogshead
Distillery notes	One for the Campbeltown fans here, and a fab chance to dive into whiskies from the region if you're not all that familiar. This 2014 vintage came to us as a single cask of "teaspooned malt" from Campbeltown, was subjected to a little cask jiggery pokery over a period of three years. Nose: Oily malt with waves of brine and sea breeze. Vanilla and a touch of ginger cake, dried mango, and prunes. A touch of damp leather, cherry chocolate, and toffee apple. Palate: Dense, charred oak brings notes of candied biscuits and sweet cinnamon swirls. Burnt brown sugar follows roasted barley, drying herbs, cooked apple and that brine from the nose in the distance. Finish: Bright, zesty notes of dried lime peels and vibrant root ginger bring a hearty finish, with salted caramel, robust oak, black tea, and prickle of pink peppercorn.	Blended malt Scotch whisky from us right here at Master of Malt! A marriage of Campbeltown single malts, matured in refill hogsheads and oloroso octaves for eight years. Nose: Oily brine and sugar-dusted pear drops, green apple, creamy grist, and a touch of sawdust, followed by hints of prune and honeyed fig. Palate: Candied apple, dried, salted mango, leathery oak. Nutty notes of maple syrup lead to robust woody spice with hints of blueberry and roasted coffee beans. Custard cream biscuits and hazelnut cream linger beneath. Finish: Crackles of pepper and a smidge of root ginger are kept at bay by drizzles of icing sugar, butter biscuits, and sweet, herbaceous, red fruit notes of rooibos tea and dark chocolate Maltesers.
My thoughts:
Appearance
	Dark gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thin line, take an age to bead up forming an inverted crown before falling as a slow thin legs.	Dark gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thin line, take an age to bead up forming an inverted crown before falling as a slow thin legs.
Nose	It's s little closed to be honest - tropical fruit, salinity, gentle smoke and a hint of berries. But this still shouts Glen Scotia at me. There's a little honey, dried fruit, blueberry jam and some marzipan. A little toffee apple and brown sugar round things off.	Again a little closed  - there's tropical fruit, citrus notes and some icing sugar. This noses a little fresher than the other dram - the salinity is missing and therefore points me at Kilkerran.
Palate	Thick juicy arrival, salinity, tropical fruit, berries and dryness. There's a little coconut, walnuts, milk chocolate and some berry jam notes. There's a brown sugar sweetness, some citrus and a little dry smoke as the liquid disappears. The tropical fruit, salinity and smoke again points towards Glen Scotia.	Thick dry arrival, very spicy, a little tropical fruit - very different from the first dram. This one is spice led with notes of dried fruit and strawberry jam. There's a little chocolate and a slightly sour smoky grapefruit note. I'm thinking this is a Kilkerran.
Finish	Lingering dry spice, salinity and a little citrus.	Lingering dry salinity, sour citrus and peppery spice.
Overall	These drams were distilled within a month of each other and followed similar (interesting) maturation routes but taste very different - indicating that they were maybe from different distilleries? At £40 each I'm pretty sure we can rule out Springbank. Sam Simmons from Atom said the original hogshead was split into 4 sherry octaves for 18 months before being put back into the hogshead for a further 12 months. Why? It seems like they bought some 'ordinary' casks and finished them to add some complexity? I can't see anyone being able to buy a 'good' cask of Glen Scotia for £40 a bottle... That said I do know that a lot of people have liked these drams and that's great - all of us are different and we all like different things!

Many thanks to @WhiskyResource for the samples and bottle photos.

Geeky stuff:

These teaspooned malts haven't been named but there have been loads of 'named' teaspooned malts:

• Aldunie (Kininvie)
• Auchinderrom (Peated Glenglassaugh)
• Blairfindy (Glenfarclas)
• Burnside (Balvenie)
• Craigmills (Glenglassaugh)
• Duich (Tamdhu)
• Glen Mosset (Benromach)
• Glenisla (Glen Keith)
• Glenshiel (Glenrothes)
• Kildalton (Ardbeg)
• Kintail (Macallan)
• Margadale (Bunnahahbain)
• Placemill (Glendronach)
• Staoisha (heavily peated Bunnahabhain)
• Stronachie (Benrinnes)
• Wardhead (Glenfiddich)
• Westport (Glenmorangie)
• Whitlaw (Highland Park)
• Williamson (Laphroaig)