Glen Scotia Victoriana Campbeltown Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2022) 70cl

Glen Scotia's Victoriana sees the Campbeltown distillery's single malt drawn from casks with a particularly heavy char profile, imparting plenty of rich, roasty-toasty notes. This, however, is the Victoriana Cask Strength expression. It's obvious what the difference here is - it's bottled at cask strength, a robust 54.2% ABV, which helps bolster those aforementioned roasty-toasty notes.

One of the last remaining distilleries from Campbeltown's glory days as “whisky capital of the world”, Glen Scotia's versatility made it extremely useful to blenders; a factor that undoubtedly played a part in its survival of the 1920s cull. That might imply that the life of the small distillery has all been smooth sailing, however the truth is anything but.

Glen Scotia has traded hands frequently, gone through several periods of mothballing, and has previously fallen into quite a state of disrepair. Not to mention it's haunted (!) by the ghost of former owner Duncan MacCallum, who tragically committed suicide after being scammed out of his life savings.

Thankfully, these days things are looking brighter for the distillery. Now under the ownership of the Glen Catrine Company (who also own Loch Lomond distillery) it has benefited from increased investment, and in 2012 released a revitalised range of single malt expressions. Each of these are emblazoned with outlandish, brightly coloured, wrap-around packaging featuring Highland Cows, affectionately known (by SWA staff at least) as “The Disco Cows”.

Tasting Notes