Longrow New Make Spirit - Cadenheads - 1996 Release

Longrow is the name given to the heavily-peated, double-distilled single malt whisky made at Springbank distillery in Campbeltown. The barley used to distil Longrow is peated to around 50ppm and production of Longrow is currently about 10% of Springbank’s output. Longrow was made at Springbank for the first time in 1973 and 1974, and these vintages are considered classics and fetch the highest prices at auction. 

Longrow’s first standard bottling was the 10-year-old, which ran from 1985 until 2011; a popular 14-year-old was launched in 2004, followed by bottlings of Longrow aged in a variety of wine casks. The most popular of these is Longrow Red, which was first bottled in 2012, is usually aged between 10-14 years and receives an extended finish in red wine casks. 18-year-old and 21-year-old Longrows have also been bottled in recent years.

In 1842 George Duncan established a wine merchant and distillery agency business in Aberdeen. Duncan was joined in the early 1850s by his brother-in-law William Cadenhead, who took over the business after Duncan’s death in 1858, changing the company’s name to Wm. Cadenhead. When Cadenhead died in 1904 the company passed to his nephew Robert Duthie, who developed the spirits side of the business.

Duthie died suddenly in 1931, and employee Ann Oliver was put in charge of Cadenhead’s. Sadly, Oliver’s tenure ended in financial difficulty and on her retirement in 1972 the business was forced to sell its entire inventory. Cadenhead’s was acquired soon afterwards by J & A Mitchell, proprietors of Springbank distillery, who relocated the business to Campbeltown. Cadenhead’s has flourished under Mitchell’s stewardship, releasing many legendary single malt bottlings in the 1980s and 1990s and now has outlets in Edinburgh and London as well as Campbeltown.