Glen Scotia Campbeltown Malts Festival 2026 Release arrives
The Glen Scotia Campbeltown Malts Festival 2026 Release is here! And as usual, it’s a corker.
This year’s limited edition whisky arrives as a seven-year-old, medium-peated single malt, matured in first-fill bourbon barrels before a six-month finish in ruby Port casks.
It’s bottled non-chill filtered at cask strength (53.9% ABV) and lands at the good ship MoM for a sum of £58.95, which in festival bottling terms feels refreshingly sane.
Port, peat, and Campbeltown attitude
Glen Scotia has built a reputation for its festival releases. Each manages to find a balance between powerful and playful, and this year’s edition is no different.
The bourbon maturation lays down the classic structure of vanilla, sweetness, and gentle oak, while the ruby Port finish piles on ripe red fruit and spice. Add in soft peat smoke and the distillery’s trademark coastal salinity, and you’ve got a whisky that manages to feel both lively and unmistakably Campbeltown.
In other words, fruit, smoke, and sea breeze. What a trio.
Buy it now from Master of Malt!
A festival bottle with a little extra
The 2026 bottling also includes a small tech twist. Scan the QR code on the box and you can step inside the distillery virtually, meeting the team responsible for making the whisky.
The Campbeltown Malts Festival, held 19 to 20 May 2026, is one of the most beloved events in the whisky calendar. Every year, thousands of fans descend on the Wee Toon for distillery events, tastings, and enough drams to make the ferry home feel like a sensible life choice.
Glen Scotia will host a mix of workshops, tastings, and talks across the festival.
Highlights include Big Campbeltown Character, a session exploring the tropical fruit, coastal notes, and oily texture of Glen Scotia with Loch Lomond Group master blender Michael Henry. There is also Deconstructed Festival Release 2026, where brand ambassador Gary Mills breaks down the whisky’s components, and Port to Port, a tasting with master blender Ashley Smith exploring how wine, rum, and sherry casks shape the distillery’s style.
Who wants to try this year’s whisky?
Small town, big whisky
Campbeltown was once known as the Victorian whisky capital of the world, home to more than 30 distilleries. Today, just three remain (though more are on the way), with Glen Scotia doing a sublime job of being an ambassador for the region. For all that Springbank is exceptional, and it is, few get their hands on its whisky. That’s not the case here, although I wouldn’t stand on ceremony for this release, it’s obviously limited.
The distillery still operates with a relatively small team, traditional equipment, and the sort of stubborn independence that seems baked into the town itself.
Which is probably why these festival releases feel so personal. They are not just about the whisky. They celebrate the place that made it. Cheers to that.
Glen Scotia Campbeltown Malts Festival 2026 Release Tasting Notes:
Nose: Opens with sweet peat, ripe red cherry and creamy vanilla fudge.
Palate: Bursting with juicy mandarin before indulgent blackcurrant jam and layers of rich smoky embers.
Finish: Warming cinnamon and clove spice, coastal salinity and lingering peat smoke.
