John Campbell: Laphroaig expansion on way

19 February 2018 by

Twelve years into his tenure as Laphroaig’s distillery manager, John Campbell is about to oversee the biggest project of his career.

With demand for peated single malt increasing, distilleries across the Hebridean island of Islay are busy planning major expansions in order to cope, Laphroaig included.

While precise plans haven’t been decided, Campbell revealed the coastal distillery is looking at increasing the amount of peated single malt it can produce by up to 100%. The expansion will be Laphroaig’s largest since two additional stills were added during the 1970s.

But the decision won’t be taken by Laphroaig and owner Beam Suntory alone – the distillery wants to include its consumers – the Friends of Laphroaig – in the process as well. ‘There’s a lot of work going on in the background before we take the steps to increase the capacity, and we will involve probably our consumers in that as well,’ he said.

Here, in an interview filmed for Scotchwhisky.com last year, Campbell explains what’s next in Laphroaig’s future, and why whisky ‘means everything’ to him.

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