Taste Review #102 – Springbank 15 Old vs New
I am getting excited.
Meteorological Spring is here, and the Crocuses and Snowdrops have arrived and the daffodils are on the way. It hasn’t been the hardest of winters here in the southern part of the Speyside Whisky region and it was nice not to see the mess of my grass thanks to a month of snow and ice, but you can’t beat the sunny spring bulbs, the longer evenings and the warmer temperatures. Spring has sprung and the title of this article is taken from a song by one of my favourite bands, British Sea Power.
And I am also excited because it’s the penultimate review in which I compare old vs new whiskies and this time we take the only visit to the Campbeltown Region that I was able to obtain an older generation whisky for. To be totally honest, getting the new version wasn’t so easy either, as produce from this distillery does tend to disappear quite quickly. While I could get my hands on it reasonably easy over the internet, I found that many of the suppliers were taking the mickey with some of the delivery charges. With prices for the most recent bottling of the 15 year old Springbank online being over £70, some retailers were going to charge me over £20 to get it delivered to my house in southern Speyside.
Fortunately I just happened to check my friendly (sort of local) independent spirits retailer with only one actually having it in stock – the Speyside Whisky Shop. Not only that, at £63 for the bottle, he was cheaper than Amazon. Result. The older dram was sourced from auction as part of an auction lot. I have reviewed this bottle before in Review #53 – you can visit it by clicking on this link. Since that article will tell you all you need to know about Springbank, I’m just going to move onto the whisky.
Springbank (1990’s / Early 2000’s)
Region – Campbeltown Age -15 y.o Strength – 46% abv Colour -Burnished (1.1) Cask Type – Sherry Colouring – No Chill Filtered -No Nose – Caramel, orchard fruit – pears, honey, slight malt. dried fruit Floral note, cut grass. Palate – Oily dram, great mouthfeel, the sweet hits right away, closely followed by spicy wood tannins, raisins, slight citrus sourness, creme brulee. Finish – Sherry notes, linger, chocolate, brine, vanilla, and a hint of wood spice.
Springbank 15 (2020)
Region – Campbeltown Age -15 y.o Strength – 46% abv Colour -Chestnut Oloroso Sherry (1.2) Cask Type – Sherry Colouring – No Chill Filtered -No Nose – Toffee, almonds, worn leather, raisins, clootie dumpling, mushrooms. Palate – Oily, raisins, not quite as sweet and certainly more sharp. Bursts into a quick hit of wood spices, with ginger, pepper and nutmeg. Cherries and plum. A noticeable hint of smokey salt. Finish – medium dried fruit, brine, oak, creamy milk chocolate. Slight sulphur note.
Conclusions
With both drams being the same strength and age statement, this will make it easy to pass judgement without having to make allowances for differences. I am not familiar with Campeltown whiskies at all, so it makes a decent bit of sense to try at least one as I can approach this without any preconceptions.
Both drams were good. Let me tell you I could not find fault with either of them. However when it came to taste, there were one or two differences between the two. Of the two to drink, I have to say that I preferred the earlier era bottle. This is because there was more depth to the sweetness, the wood notes were bright but lower in intensity than the up to date version. There was a funk to the latest edition that wasn’t present in the older bottle. – while I have described it using worn leather and mushrooms, the savoury note was a little bit of a turn off for me. Given that I’ve enjoyed a few bottles in this series that have had an ‘old bottle effect’, this is a shame. Old bottle effect I have found usually subsides after being allowed to breathe or water added. In this case, the funk of the newer bottle didn’t disappear. Coupled with the hint of sulphur at the end, to me it’s an old dram which wins my preference.
Yours In Spirits
Scotty
Scotty’s Drams encourages responsible drinking. To find out the facts about drink, and where to find help if you need it visit Drinkaware.co.uk by clicking on the link.
Photo Credits
All Photos – Authors Own
Scotty’s Drams 
Awesome post! I really like how detailed and fair you compared the two. Often when people taste whiskies from different eras, it quickly becomes the old, tired “Back in the day everything was so much better” talk. While the old bottling ended up being your favorite, you gave both whiskies the respect and attention they deserve. Nice work!
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Cheers Tobi! I’ve tried my best to be fair and at each point have looked to find an identifiable reason why I’ve picked what I have picked. Will hopefully get the last review tasted and written in the next couple of days. Then it’s onto the conclusion article.
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