Longrow is Springbank's fully peated expression — the third spirit produced at the Campbeltown distillery, alongside the lightly peated Springbank and the triple-distilled Hazelburn. Named after a long-closed neighbouring distillery, Longrow uses malt dried over a peat fire for 48 hours, producing approximately 50ppm of phenols. It is double-distilled, unlike Springbank's distinctive two-and-a-half-times process.
The Peated expression is a no-age-statement vatting from bourbon and sherry casks, bottled at 46% without chill filtration. Longrow's peat style is fundamentally different from Islay: where Laphroaig gives you iodine and Ardbeg gives you barbecue, Longrow gives you soot and ash — a drier, more earthy smoke that reflects Campbeltown's inland peat rather than Islay's coastal bogs.
The nose is powerfully smoky but inviting: creamy vanilla custard, toasted marshmallow, herbs, toffee, and evolving rich fruit. The palate is bold yet delicate — sooty peat, toffee, brown sugar, malty oat biscuits, vanilla custard, green hay, gooseberry, white pepper, and honeysuckle. It is a whisky that manages to be fierce and gentle simultaneously.
The finish is long, with pepper, straw, kiwi fruit, and enduring peat. At its price point, Longrow gives many Islay whiskies that cost considerably more a great deal to think about. It is one of Campbeltown's finest achievements — a peated malt with its own voice, owing nothing to Islay and standing entirely on its own terms.
