I have to confess I haven’t really tracked the Campbeltown Malts Festival very much over the years. The festival was launched in 2008 but I didn’t get around to reviewing a festival release until 2021 (when I reviewed the Glen Scotia release for the 2020 festival). You might think that 2008 is pretty recent and while that’s true in the abstract, consider that the Spirit of Speyside festival only launched nine years prior, and there are a whole lot more distilleries in the Speyside than in Campbeltown. Feis Ile, the Islay festival, is a bit older but it’s not like it goes back to the dawn of time either: the first iteration was held in 1986. Still, it’s probably fair to say that of the major regional festivals, the Campbeltown Malts Festival has the lowest profile. And considering that the other distilleries in the region are either Springbank or a member of the Springbank family (Glengyle/Kilkerran), it’s also fair to say that Glen Scotia probably has the lowest profile of the participants. Or maybe I’m wrong and there is a huge frenzy to purchase their festival releases as well, and a crazy secondary market for them. Unlike most of the Islay distilleries, they do put age statements on their festival releases. The aforementioned 2020 release was 14 years old, and this year’s release (which I reviewed on Monday) was 11 years old. Both were peated whiskies and involved finishes: tawny port for the 2020 and white port for the 2023. Today I have a review of their release for the 2022 festival. It was only 8 years old and, though peated, was finished in PX rather than port casks. Let’s see what it was like.

Glen Scotia 8, Campbeltown Malts Festival 2022 (56.5%; PX cask finish; from a bottle split)

Nose: Big peat with strong butyric notes (a la Bruichladdich/Port Charlotte); pipe tobacco. On the second sniff there’s some cocoa along with the tobacco and some ash mixed in with the richer smoke. The butyric note lingers a good while before mostly dissipating after a good 20-30 minutes of airing. With water the ash and cocoa and pipe tobacco mingle nicely, with the cocoa on top.

Palate: Comes in with pretty sharp smoke and slightly raw oak (pencil shavings). Hotter than the abv would suggest; thin texture. As it sits the smoke becomes less sharp but the oak is still quite insistent. Picks up more sweetness as it goes and the oak recedes a little. Okay, let’s see what water does for it. Oh, it’s mellower at first but as I swallow the sharper oak wakes back up.

Finish: Long. The sharp smoke and the oak continue into the finish, with the sweeter notes emerging at the end. Develops as on the palate with the sweeter notes taking over; the ash emerges again at the end with more time. Sharper again here too with water.

Comments: This is an interesting whisky. My first impressions were that it was a bit too oaky and just a bit too raw; but then with time it settled down quite nicely. Water mellowed the nose further but threw the palate and finish out of balance again. I wonder what the cask types used were and how long the finish was applied—there certainly is no wine separation.

Rating: 85 points.