Springbank Local Barley 8 Yr Old (2025) - Review
If you’re looking for the polar opposite of a polished, corporate whiskey brand, you’ve found it in Springbank. Tucked away in the salty, rain-swept corner of the Kintyre Peninsula, this distillery is basically the "old-school cool" of the Scotch world. While most modern distilleries look like high-tech laboratories, Springbank feels more like a 19th-century workshop that just happens to produce some of the best liquid on the planet.
Started back in 1828 by the Reid brothers, it was eventually taken over by the Mitchell family, and—impressively—they still run the show today under J & A Mitchell & Co. In a world where giant conglomerates are buying up every craft name they can find, Springbank’s independence is a badge of honor. But what really makes them legends is that they "walk the talk." They are the only distillery in Scotland that handles the entire process on-site. We’re talking about everything: floor malting their own barley (which is back-breaking work), distilling, aging, and even bottling. Most distilleries ship their spirit off in tankers to be bottled in a factory; Springbank keeps it all at home in Campbeltown.
The Local Barley Craze
Among Springbank fans, nothing causes a stir quite like the Local Barley annual release. The whole point of this series is to get back to the roots of whisky making by using barley grown just a few miles from the distillery. It’s a total "grain-to-glass" flex that highlights the specific terroir of the region.
The 2025 Local Barley release is the one everyone is currently hunting. It’s an 8-year-old powerhouse, distilled back in 2016 and hitting shelves (and disappearing from them) after being bottled in late 2024. For this specific run, they went with Bere barley, which is an ancient, stubborn six-row grain that hasn't changed much since the Vikings were around. It’s much harder to work with than modern barley, but Springbank loves a challenge if it means more character.
This 2025 edition was sourced from High Ranachan Farm and comes in at a heavy-hitting 58.1% ABV. They kept the maturation pretty classic here, using a 50/50 split of ex-Bourbon and ex-Sherry casks. With only 13,500 bottles available globally, it’s a small-batch reminder that sometimes the best way to move forward is to refuse to change how you did things a hundred years ago.
Review:
Nose: This nose has a BODY to it. There is quite a bit going on here. On the first nose, I get a dusty grain note with dried plums/oranges, with a smell as if you are emptying a pencil sharpener in school. I know that is so targeted but you know what you know. It takes a while to uncover it but it is there behind the softened fruit and pepper notes. The pepper came in after I had went back for the 3rd or 4th smell. No ethanol is present on the nose, whatsoever, which speaks volumes since this one is over 116 proof… As I continue to parse through this I get, like a funky citrus Ivory soap? It turns a bit savory the more it lingers and the more I go back to it. Very interesting.
Palate: Golden honey color to the eye. Very oily on the palate and sits heavy as if you are sipping on an olive oil in a way. It is very sweet sitting on the tongue and the moment you breathe in, you get a one way express ticket to Funkytown. The first note I get is a sea salty brininess followed by concord grapes, light peatiness. Then all of the sudden comes that citrusy soap taste. It’s not bad but that’s what I describe as the “funk”. After going back for my third or fourth sip, I get some notes of chocolate. This feels like you can almost chew it…
Finish: The finish is long lasting on this. After having my sip, I still get many of the notes on the palate for about 30-45 seconds afterwards. The flavors begin to soften and no new flavors present themselves but oddly enough, even though the pet is present (smokiness), the orange flavor powers through. Consider an explanation to be lke you are taking a bite out of a dark chocolate covered dried orange peel with someone sitting in a designated smoking section about a room or two away from you. I’ll leave you with that.
Overall: (91). Sheeeeit, I like this. A lot. It is overwhelmingly complex and one that I had to sit with for 15 minutes and parse through it all. It helped immensely when you let it open up for about 15-20 minutes after the pour, or opening the bottle. I desperately wish I could say “Don’t fall for the hype”. But I can confidently say I haven’t had another scotch like this. It is fruity, it is savory, it is smokey, it is oily, and it drinks well below its proof. When you get close to 60%, it can be make or break based on how it feels on the palate and this sips as if it is around 100 proof. Even though I gave this a lights out score, I think this is a try before you buy. Its so different and it’s a lot of money to spend on “different” if you haven’t had a unique bottling from Springbank before.
Value: 70/100; (+0 on the overall). I paid $169.99 for this. Initially, I was kicking myself walking out of the store knowing I just paid that much for a bottle of whiskey that is only 8 years old. However, with it being only 8 years old, this packs more flavor in than some scotches I’ve had getting close to twenty years old. This is a conversation starter scotch. It can either be your cup of tea, or it can be a good (albeit expensive) wound disinfectant for you. I fall in the camp of the former and would pay this for a 2nd bottle. They are going for about $350-$400 on the secondary market and are surprisingly easier to find in the states than in Scotland. The Scots love this stuff.
Availability: A Scottish unicorn. Did you know that the national animal of Scotland is a Unicorn? Fitting for this. Only 13,500 bottles were made, which sounds like a lot, but only a small few were distributed out of the country.
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