An Inside the Cask chat with….John Campbell

Hi Andre, well its strange as my first career was as a lobster fisherman but I needed more security and didn’t want to leave the island, so chose whisky and then Laphroaig to try and work there. Luckily this happened and started off at the easiest job on the site and worked my way up.

Inside the Cask: Most people will have no idea of the work involved in producing whiskies, so what does the job of distillery manager entail on a day to day basis? What experience do you have in your career to date?

My three main responsibilities as the distillery manager are for the people and to make sure they have all that they need. The liquid quality and so, ensuring consistency of the alcohol produced. Finally, ensuring that the distillery meets all its legislation requirements. There are lots of other small responsibilities also but these three are key.

Inside the cask: What attributes would you suggest someone would need to have to become a whisky distiller?

I think it’s the same qualities with any career. So be passionate and care about what you do, keep learning and developing your knowledge of your chosen career and be targeted and by this I mean, make things happen. We find sometimes reasons to not do things in our lives and at my age now I believe that you can make anything happen if you want it too.

Inside the Cask: You have been the Distillery Manager at Laphroaig since 2006. Can you tell us more about Laphroaig single malts and what makes it special? What is so different about it?

Laphroaig single malts are special due to the production process we use. We do a few unique things around the site like the way we smoke the barley is different to the rest of the Scotch Whisky industry and this produces different flavours to extract. The way we distill is different to the rest of the Scotch whisky industry and so produce a different spirit due to this and the smoke flavours we have extracted from the malted barley. So two huge factors in a similar process to everybody else.

Inside the Cask note on reference to smoking barley at Laphroaig (from The Whiskey Wash interview with John): “Laphroaig will cold smoke malted barley. Basically we’re just trying to get the smoke off the fire, no flames, and getting that nice blue smoke going through a malted barley to flavour it, for about 17 hours. Every other single distillery, whether it’s a full malted or a commercial malted, will flavour and dry at the same time. So you just get different flavours coming through that way. Different smoke flavours, so that’s one of the real keys to making Laphroaig different, I would say.

The peat on the island itself is different to the peat on mainland Scotland as well, just due to the geology. It’s kind of seaweed-based and decayed grasses and vegetation, whereas the peat in mainland Scotland, based in an old Caledonian forest, is wood-based.”

Inside the Cask: Scotch whisky remains a large and popular drinks category globally and demand for single malts in particular continues to increase. Laphroaig is reported to be producing close to capacity with 70% of its production used for single malts. How will the distillery manage to continue to increase the supply of Laphroaig to its many fans worldwide?

Yes, Laphroaig is now producing close to 90% for single malt and the only way to do this is increase the overall capacity or cut back on the 10% volume we trade to other companies or use within our company for blends.

Inside the Cask: Which one is your favourite dram of Laphroaig and why?

I love the 10 year old Laphroaig and it’s the heart of the brand and if you ever make it to Islay it tastes of the area. So like terroir in wine I believe 10 year old is of the region.