1992 Gordon & Macphail The Macphails Collection Glen Scotia 19 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky (700ml)

Campbeltown is too easily overlooked as a malt region. It still produces extraordinarily diverse and distinctive singles, despite there being only three distilleries: Springbank, Glengyle and Glen Scotia.The sea-mist character of the region can be at its freshest and most startling in the latter, and when pronounced, it ranks as one of our favourite drams.

Production employs both unpeated and peated barley with most maturation taking place in Bourbon barrels. The style is typically fresh and salty (maritime), so it makes for a good aperitif. This unusually aged expression at 19 years was bottled by Gordon & Macphail, distilled in 1992 and bottled in 2011 at 43% Alc./Vol.

Founded around 1832, the distillery operates in a cottage-like building, said to be haunted by the ghost of a former proprietor who drowned himself in Campbeltown Loch after being tricked out of a large sum of money. After a period of closure in the mid 1980s, Glen Scotia reopened toward the end of that decade. Since 1999 it was distilling for only a few weeks of the year, thanks to the team at Springbank. Activity has been stepped up since 2007.