Kilkerran Products

The history of Mitchell’s Glengyle distillery is a long and colorful one, but one which begins with a man named William Mitchell. William was the son of Archibald Mitchell, the founder of nearby Springbank Distillery. In the second half of the 1800s William ran Springbank Distillery in a partnership with his brother John, while the other brothers and sisters were active running the old Rieclachan Distillery across town. The family were not just distillers but also farmers, which was quite a common thing in those days. The farming element in the partnership with John didn’t run very smoothly and allegedly the two brothers had a quarrel about sheep. This led to William leaving the family business to start his own venture, Glengyle Distillery just down the road from Springbank. The Kilkerran malt is dried over a peat fire for six hours followed by an additional 30 hours in hot air to produce a lightly peated malt. A typical fermentation lasts between 72-110 hours. We find that having such a long fermentation and using natural materials gives us a fruiter ale which in turn produces a fruitier spirit in the distillation process. At Mitchell’s Glengyle Distillery we do a traditional Scottish double distillation. The spirit is then filled into a mixture of casks, we use sherry and bourbon mainly, hogsheads and butts. Once filled, the casks are transported to Springbank distillery for maturation. Once our whisky has matured for the required time, casks are selected for bottling and vatted with water from Crosshill loch and left to “marry” for up to six months prior to bottling. . Not at any stage during bottling do we chill filter our whisky, nor do we add any caramel color to the product.