Scotland : Putt ... and Pass the Whiskey : Touring the Western Highlands, in search of golf courses with wee prices and single malts with big taste

More whiskey was the last thing either of us wanted that evening, but it would have been unconscionable to refuse our host David Evamy’s toast. His restaurant, called The Anchorage, had been named Scotland’s finest by prestigious Decanter magazine the week before--extraordinary for a 25-seat eatery in Tarbert, a postcard-size fishing village in southwest Scotland’s Kintyre Peninsula. With dinner now over, Evamy had dispensed with his duties as maitre d’ and joined us at the table bearing three glasses and an unfamiliar bottle whose label read, “Springbank 21-year-old single malt whisky.” Evamy poured three hefty measures and raised his glass.

Spare us. My traveling companion Cynthia and I had just stepped wobbly-legged off the ferry from Islay (“A wee bit rough today,” conceded a crew member, himself a little green around the epaulets), the island intended to be the last stop on our blurry pilgrimage through Scotland’s lowland, highland and island whiskey country. We had seen it all, done and drunk it all. Or so we thought.

“Cheers,” said Evamy. Cynthia and I glanced at each other, and reluctantly did the same. Hmmmm.

The next morning, we were hurtling 40 miles southward toward the Springbank distillery in Campbeltown, source of the finest whiskey we had ever tasted. According to Evamy, Springbank is Scotland’s oldest family-owned distillery and one of just two of that country’s distillers not in corporate clutches (Glenlivet is the other). More significantly, Springbank makes the only whiskey ever voted “best aged spirit” three years in a row by Britain’s authoritative Decanter.

But on this fall 1992 day, as we passed alternately through hailstorms and blinding sunshine, flanked on one side by crashing surf and on the other by lush hillside punctuated by ancient stone farmhouses and grazing cattle and sheep, we couldn’t help posing the question: How come we had never heard of the stuff? The answer awaited us in Campbeltown.

Single malts such as Springbank are the product of just one distillery, and have only recently come into their own. Until the 1960s, almost all single malts went to bottlers of “blends.” Blended whiskeys such as Chivas Regal and Cutty Sark are mixes of up to 50 whiskey varieties. Scots have always drunk single malts, but it’s only in the last decade that they have made them widely available overseas; sales of single malts tripled in the ‘80s, and names like Glenlivet and Glenfiddich are now well known to American drinkers. Unlike the smooth, consistent, but characterless blends whose market share has dwindled due to changing attitudes toward drinking, single malts are growing in popularity precisely because of their strong, idiosyncratic personalities.

The flavor and aroma of a single malt whiskey often reveal its place of origin. From the Lowlands come soft, gentle whiskeys such as Auchentoshan and Bladnoch (neither distillery open to the public). On Islay, the single malts tend to be powerful and pungent because the brine-soaked peat bogs from which the water comes imbue island whiskeys such as Laphroaig and Bunnahabhain with an earthy, aromatic character suffused with the influence of the sea.

By the time we set off for Campbeltown, we had sampled dozens of single malts, but none like the Springbank we had tasted the night before. With its balance of elegance and vigor, to us this was the quintessential Scottish single malt whiskey.

Our route to Campbeltown wended its way through villages whose names bespoke southwest Scotland’s Celtic heritage--Bellachroy, Rhunahaorine, Auchinfaud. As we sped through their remote communities, villagers turned from what they were doing and waved unselfconsciously. Outside Auchinfaud stood a walled-in graveyard that seemed eerily peaceful despite the 10-foot waves that crashed deafeningly on the rocks just yards away.

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We arrived in Campbeltown looking for Gordon Wright, a direct descendant of Springbank’s founder and the person who ran the distillery. Evamy had given us his name, and told us to look for him this particular day at Springbank’s retail outlet, Eaglesome Ltd., in the middle of town.

If Aladdin were in the whiskey trade, Eaglesome’s is what his cave would look like. Oh sure, there were some gourmet food items here and there, but the poky little store’s stock in trade is booze. Every single malt whiskey known to mankind appeared to be balanced precariously on its shelves. At least a dozen Springbank single malts were displayed, including a 15-year-old vintage that the family owners of the distillery allow to be sold only here.

Just moments after we arrived at Eaglesome’s, the door swung open, and in trooped Gordon Wright and his family.

It would be convenient for the purposes of this story if Gordon Wright were a red-bearded and kilted Scotsman who bellowed “och aye, the noo!” wherever he went. But in his jeans and leather bomber jacket, the handsome and hefty Wright is a thoroughly modern fellow who just happens to make whiskey the old-fashioned way, as he was about to explain.

“All the way from America, eh?” he said. “Well, in that case I suppose we’d better have a chat.”

Ushering us into the store’s cluttered back room, Wright dusted off some glasses and launched an impromptu tasting of several Springbank vintages, including a smooth-as-silk, 33-year-old that sells for $150.

We talked as we drank, and it soon became apparent why Springbank produces whiskey that is at once extraordinary and obscure.

“This is a family business,” said Wright. “We don’t have an amorphous group of shareholders to keep happy. Our smallness means we have no budget to market our whiskey, but it enables us to do things in a very non-corporate fashion.”

To illustrate his point, Wright ducked out of the room and returned with two bottles of his 21-year-old. Each was a very different color. We knew by now that whiskey is aged in secondhand sherry or bourbon casks, but not that sherry casks yield a tea-colored whiskey, while the whiskey aged in bourbon casks comes out the shade of white wine.

“Most distillers color their whiskey with caramel before bottling it to give it a color consistency,” said Wright. “Not only does that affect the taste of the whiskey, but it’s incredibly presumptuous to assume that your customers are so unsophisticated that they’d be confused by this.

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Springbank doesn’t advertise, but a recent event unprecedented in 500 years of Scotland’s whiskey history garnered the distillery the kind of publicity money can’t buy. In 1991, Wright was checking his stocks for an 18-year-old whiskey to bottle when he discovered two rum barrels among his sherry and bourbon casks. Checking his distillery logs, Wright discovered that in 1971 the distillery manager had on a whim decided to age two lots of whiskey in these rum casks. Lo and behold, when Wright opened the barrels he found the world’s first-ever green whiskey. Exposure on the BBC and in the London Times helped Wright turn the forgotten experiment into a $50,000 windfall by selling it at $50 a bottle.

“How about a look-see of the distillery?” asked Wright when it started becoming obvious that his bleary-eyed guests might have sampled quite enough of his fine single malt whiskey.

This was a rare privilege, indeed, as Springbank is the only distillery of any note in Scotland that doesn’t give tours of its premises. Even on remote, rain-lashed Islay, distillery tours are followed by video presentations. In fact, the hundred or so distilleries in Scotland are owned by just a handful of public-relations-savvy corporations.

Ten minutes later, Wright slid an enormous copper key into the distillery main gate and, with a grunt, pushed it open. His wife slipped into her office (she’s responsible for domestic sales), and Gordon Wright began an off-the-cuff tour of the beery-smelling, disorganized collection of early 19th-Century buildings that constitute the Springbank distillery. In attendance: Cynthia and I, kids Rebecca and John, and Missy, the Wrights’ irascible border collie.

Wright had every intention of giving a polished account of how the family business runs, but his elan was punctured by his young charges. Their hyperactive hound pestered him at every turn, dropping a stick at his feet every few moments and then backing up in anticipation of his throwing it. Wright pretended to ignore the dog, but it was clear she was ruining his concentration.

No big deal. By now we could recite verbatim how the Scots make their malt whiskey. Springbank makes its single malt whiskey in the same way that the 100-ish other distilleries in Scotland do. With one difference--it is the only distillery that completes all processing steps on its own premises (most distillers contract out the malting, the process by which grain is soaked and gently ground).

Having thanked the Wrights for their hospitality and bid them farewell, we were walking past a mound of oak barrels in the distillery courtyard when Gordon Wright caught up with us. He thrust a bottle of his 21-year-old whiskey into my hands.

“Here, take this,” he said. “You’ll find it tricky getting a bottle in the States.”

I kept that bottle beside me as I wrote this. It proved to be an effective muse. Whenever I needed to transport myself from grimy urban America to the Kintyre Peninsula, I would simply take another sip and find myself back in malt whiskey country, the smell of peat and sea air heavy in the air, the promise of good single malt whiskey always nearby.

GUIDEBOOK

Scotland Distilled

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Getting there: Tarbert is on the Kintyre Peninsula, 100 miles west of Glasgow. (See guidebook on golfing in Scotland, L13, for airlines and fares from LAX to Glasgow.)

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Where to eat and drink: The Anchorage, Harbor Street, Tarbert; from the U.S. telephone 011-44-880-820-881.

Eaglesome Lmt., retail outlet for Springbank Distillery, Reform Square, Campbeltown; 011-44-586-55-2009.

Glenlivet Distillery, Ballindalloch, Banffshire, AB379DB; open Monday-Saturday mid-March to November, with extended hours during the summer; tel. 011-44-807-590-427.

Laphroaig Distillery, Port Ellen, Isle of Islay, PA427DU; open Monday-Thursday September-June, appointments necessary; 011-44-496-30-2418.

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For more information: A free copy of 1994 pamphlet “Scotch Whisky Distilleries Which Welcome Visitors,” contact the Scotch Whisky Information Center, 30 Liberty Ave., Lindenhurst, N.Y. 11757; or call (800) 274-7942.

In Edinburgh visit the Scotch Whisky Heritage Center, 354 Castlehill, on the Royal Mile, open daily; tel. 011-44-31-220-0441.