Springbank Distillery… My Heaven on Earth!!!!!!!
A recipe inspired by unforgettable days in Campbeltown at Springbank Distillery: where great whisky, incredible people, and thoughtfully prepared meals came together. This dish is a tribute to that experience and the flavours that stayed with me.
RECIPES
5/20/20265 min read
Some dishes are more than just food. They’re tied to a place, a moment, and a feeling. For me, this one is all about Springbank Distillery.
My absolute hands down favourite distillery and whisky, my deathbed dram, the final curtain, game over dram!
Everything about this distillery has found a place close to my heart. As many of you in the whisky world know, Springbank has a cult following that has grown in the years and is growing by the day. There are a lot of similarities between my style of cooking and Springbank whisky. One major one? No compromises. They don’t cut corners in how they produce their spirit, and I don’t compromise in how I cook or source ingredients. Simple as that.
This dish I will be sharing with you was inspired by a dinner we had prepared by one of our lovely hosts Sandra.
September 2025 I scratched off an item from my ever shrinking Whisky bucket list. My fiancee and I spent 3 days at Springbank distillery enjoying the highly regarded experience called Eat, Sleep, Dram, Repeat.
This experience was at the tail end of what has become our yearly trip to Scotland. We had spent 8 incredible days before this in Glasgow, Glen Coe, Fort William and Oban. Yes there were other distilleries visited but that’s another story ;) For those who know, know where we went in those cities.
We arrived on a sunny afternoon after driving down the A816 and A83 from Oban to Campbeltown. We had to stop and enjoy some scenery on the way down like castles and coos. We arrived around 3pm, checked in and went to our wee house to meet our new flatmates for the next 3 nights.
What this Springbank experience involved was a jam-packed itinerary: two distillery tours (Springbank and Kilkerran), warehouse tastings at Cadenhead’s and Springbank, a blend-your-own-bottle session (Christina’s turned out better, beginners luck!), and a walking tour of the wee town. Every meal was included and more than a few inspirations for this blog were born at that table. The staff were incredible: Findlay, Sandra, Craig and Adi were so very passionate and knowledgeable about everything Springbank. We stayed in a wee house called “The Still Guesthouse”, which was a short walk from the distillery. The guesthouse was quaint and gorgeous, part of the appeal of this experience is the ad hoc atmosphere with 6 other people. Joining us were two couples from England Iain & Helen, Paul & Anthea and a couple gents (uncle and nephew) from Australia, Dom & Luca. Turns out Dom and Christina & I have a mutual friend Igor! How small is this whisky world when people from opposite parts of the world meet at an iconic distillery and have mutual friend! In a few short hours, the eight of us became great friends. To this day we still are in contact through Whats App, sharing our ongoing whisky journeys. This coming July my father and I will be returning to Springbank for a 4 day visit to scratch off another bucket list item. Joining us for this tour will be Helen & Iain again.
Let’s say the bar was packed full of all things Springbank and Cadenhead’s. In the common room were 4 handfilled blends from cask ends from each respective brand, Springbank, Hazelburn, Longrow & Kilkkeran. Also at the party was the 7 star blend from Cadenheads, Old Raj gin, a bottle of blended rum, Campbeltown Loch and OB of Springbank 10, all incredible libations to wet the whistle.
Our first tour was a cracker, the in depth and very detailed Springbank tour. Springbank is one of very few distilleries left in Scotland that do the whole process on site from malting the barley to distilling, storing the casks and bottling the precious liquid. All done with pretty much all the refurbished equipment they started with in 1828.
Our Second tour was inside the Cadenhead warehouse and we got to try six straight from the casks samples from six different distilleries. The stand out was a 17 year old Glenlossie with full maturation in a bourbon cask. It tasted like being in a French bakery at 7am with every tropical fruit being utilized in the pastries.
After the tasting, we had lunch at the Cadenhead Library Bar. I mention this because this wee pub had such a cozy vibe and it mimics how Christina and I see part of our B&B evolving into ( as well the best empire biscuit we have ever had).
After lunch we had a tasting in the Springbank warehouse and we tried some truly amazing drams. First a 32 year old Springbank, second was a 22 year old Hazelburn, third was 23 year old Longrow. Bonus dram we had the choice of 4 casks and Christina spotted the 2011 Springbank and convinced everyone this was the one to try of the four. She was a little biased because that is her son’s birth year, but it took very little convincing to the group and it was spectacular!
Dinner this evening was a multi course extravaganza prepared by Sandra paired with four drams and is the inspiration for this dish I will be sharing with you. I could go on and on about the rest of the experience, but I’ll save a bit of that for the next Springbank story. What I will share is this: the people, the place, and the drams left their mark. This dish is my way of bringing a small piece of Campbeltown into my own kitchen, and now into yours.
Recipes
Pan seared salmon
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil or avocado oil (any oil with high smoke point)
Cast iron pan for salmon
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Pour oil into pan and pre heat to a high temperature.
Place salmon skin side down and reduce heat to medium.
Cook for 3-4 minutes, flip and cook on every exposed side for 30 seconds.
Confit fingerling Potato Coins
6 pieces of fingerling potato or Cookstown Blondes if you are in Ontario
1 pound of butter
Salt & pepper
Cut potatoes very thin and place in a baking dish.
Cut up butter and place over seasoned potatoes.
Cook for 25 minutes at 300F.
Remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes then strain butter off.
Charred Broccolini Puree
1 cup of 35% cream
1 small onion chopped
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup white wine (preferably Chablis)
1 bunch of broccolini
Salt & pepper
3 tablespoons Olive oil
Cut the ends of the broccolini and toss cleaned broccolini with 2 tbsp of oil and some seasoning.
Place broccolini on a baking sheet and cook at 500F for 8 minutes till nice and charred.
Saute onions and garlic in a sauce pot with the rest of the oil for 2 minutes. Add charred broccolini and deglaze with white wine. Cook for a minute and then add cream, bring to a boil and season.
When boiling reduce temperature to medium and cook for 5 minutes.
Puree in a blender or with a stick blender till smooth. Reserve.
Honey Glazed Carrots
3 organic rainbow carrots
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
½ cup chicken stock
Salt & pepper
Peel and cut carrot as thin as possible on angle
Coat with oil and seasoning.
In a saute pan start cooking the carrots in a wee bit of oil, add stock and cook till the stock has mostly cooked off. Add butter and honey toss and serve.
Springbank 10 yr old Butter Sauce
30 ml of Springbank 10 year old
4 tablespoons butter (ice cold)
1 small shallot
1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon dry parsley
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon rinsed capers
Salt & pepper
In a small sauce pot sauté shallots and garlic for 2 minutes.
Deglaze with lemon juice and add capers and parsley, cook for 1 minute.
Deglaze with whisky and cook for 1 minute
Take off heat and whisk in 1 tablespoon of ice cold butter at a time till you have a nice thick sauce.