The Scapa distillery is located on the main island of the Orkney
isles, north-east of the Scottish mainland. Both distilleries on
the main island (Highland Park is the other one) are in or near
the town of Kirkwall. Scapa is situated on the Lingro Burn, two
miles south west of Kirkwall at the head of Scapa Bay.

As you can see from the picture at the right, the distillery itself
doesn't look as romantic as many of its mainland counterparts.
Like many distilleries on the more remote islands, Scapa has to
deal with less than favourable conditions. For one thing, it is
far more difficult to get the required natural resources (barley,
yeast, oil, etc.) from the mainland to the distillery.

The Scapa distillery was built in 1885 by John T. Townsend and one Mr. MacFarlane (whose first name
isn't mentioned in any source I've checked). Their private company was taken over by Scapa Distillery
Company Ltd. in 1919, but this company went into liquidation in 1934. The production of malt whisky
stopped as well at this time, but it was resumed again in 1936 when brothers Maurice & John Bloch
(owners of the Glengyle and Glen Scotia distilleries in Campbeltown) took over the Scapa distillery.
It is said that they needed the malt whisky from Scapa distillery for their 'Ambassador' blend - one of
the very few blends that also had a solid reputation amongst many malt whisky purists.

Hiram Walker tried to influence the character of the whisky in order to better meet the demands
of the whisky blenders. The makers of Ballantine's (as well as many other brands) wanted to be
able to use a wider spectrum of malt whiskies without having to build more different malt whisky
distilleries. The very first Lomond still was installed in 1956 in Hiram Walker's Dumbarton distillery.
Because maintenance of the Lomond stills was very labour intensive, most were removed again
in the early 1980's. However, the still at Scapa distillery wasn't replaced with a regular pot still.
Instead, the Lomond wash still was 'lobotomised' - the rectifier plates were removed so that it
would be able to function (more or less) as a regular pot still.
 
Meanwhile, the malting floors at Scapa distillery had already been closed in 1962. This was not
unusual in the 1950's and 1960's. In fact, dozens of distilleries had been closing off their malting
installations; malting floors and so-called Saladin boxes. Thanks to a concentration trend in the
whisky industry most companies owned a number of distilleries, enabling them to do the malting
at one or a handful of central locations. For example, after the Port Ellen distillery was closed the
maltings remained operational to supply distilleries like Ardbeg and Lagavulin with malted barley.

1) Scapa and Highland Park are both located South of Kirkwall, but their 'house styles' are quite different. As such, they are perfect examples of the limited value of the 'terroirs' theory from the wine world when it comes to whisky.

2) Most of the malt whisky produced at Scapa distillery is still used in blended whisky like Ballantine's.

3) Scapa distillery is the second northernmost distillery in Scotland - located just a few hundred meters South of the Highland Park distillery. For a while it looked like Blackwood distillery on the Shetlands might become the northernmost whisky distillery in Scotland, but that never really got off the ground.

4) Scapa flow (a stretch of water that links the North Sea and the Atlantic) was home to a major Royal Navy anchorage in both world wars.

5) Scapa distillery uses exclusively bourbon casks for maturation.

6) The famous whisky writer Alfred Barnard visited the Scapa distillery in 1886, one year after it was founded.
He described it as "one of the most complete little distilleries in the Kingdom" with "the newest type of stills and heated by steam instead of fire, and are both fitted with collapse valves, which allow air to enter in the event of a vacuum being formed".

7) When Scapa was relaunched in 2004 the distillery had been mothballed for a decade. That seems to be one of the reasons for replacing the 12 years old official expression with a 14 years old version in 2004.

8) Orkney was already inhabited in the bronze age. Vikings from Scandinavia arrived on Shetland and the Orkney islands in the 8th century and ruled the area for well over 500 years. It became a part of Scotland again when the king of Denmark sold the islands to James II of Scotland in 1468.
 

Scapa 14yo (40%, OB, Bottled +/- 2005)
Nose: Very sweet. Honey? Grainy, but not in a bad way. A little sharp. Glue? Toilet freshener?
I got more fruits during a second try. Still sharp, but much better than I thought. Nose opens up quite nicely.
Taste: Phew! Bitter and grainy. Pine. Eucalyptus. Still, there's a sweet undercurrent.
It seems much sweeter on the palate during round 2. Some bitterness too, apart from pine and eucalyptus.
Score: 75 points - just not really my type of malt. Seems decidedly average.

Scapa 1993/2005 (45%, Gordon & MacPhail for La Maison du Whisky)
Nose: Grainy start. Maybe a tad dusty. Grows a little spicier with time. Not too bad...
Taste: Dusty and oily. Feels like a bourbon. Quite hot. Short finish. Very dry and herbal aftertaste. Aspirin.
Score: 68 points - but I should probably add that this was dram #13 of a long, long session. Must try again.
Revision: Sweet, grainy and dusty in the nose again. And again dust on the palate again as well. Hmmm...
My initial score of 68 points is a bit harsh, but I really can't go above average for this. So, 75 points it is.

Scapa 12yo (40%, OB, Bottled +/- 2003, L01752/LF0480) sells for 30 Euro's these days.
That's not a bad price at all, but earlier batches I tried scored only slightly above average.
Nose: Wow! A spicy punch I don't recall from earlier batches. Organics as well.
It settles down within a minute, growing maltier, fruitier and much more subtle.
Hints of grey clay. Maybe some very faint chloride? Well-rounded but quite MOTR.
Taste: Smooth; not as powerful as I'd expected. Fabulous sweet & malty centre.
Liquorice and fruity notes pop up here and there. Could be a tad more expressive, though.
Score: 77 points - I had it at 78 for a while, but the sweetness on the palate eventually evaporates. I imagine this would perform a lot better at 46% - that could make it a little 'bolder', maybe pushing it into the 80's.

Scapa 23yo 1979/2003 (55.6%, Chieftain's, Sherry Butt #663, 564 bottles)
Nose: Very rich, very sweet with sherry and wood. Pipe tobacco & cigar smoke. Tea.
Lemon? Then more spices and oriental organics - another classic sherry monster.
Very expressive and everything hangs together rather well. Serious stuff...
Taste: Ah, yes. Big and sweet with lots of substance. Lighter and fruitier later.
Very smooth and sweet. Malty and chewy. Liquorice root. This is just lovely!
Oh yes, this is extremely pleasant, especially later on. Extremely likeable.
Score: 88 points - my kind of malt; big, sweet, smoky and chewy. Lovely.

Scapa 9yo 1988/1997 (43%, Signatory Vintage, Distilled 25/01/1988, Bottled 9/1997)
Nose: Very mellow at first, growing spicier. Hey, now I get lots of liquorice root. Dusty.
Slightly 'farmy' with mild organics. Quite restrained, but I have to admit I still like it!
Taste: Soft and sweet. More powerful and a little gritty in the centre. Medium finish.
It doesn't perform too bad on the palate, but it's not worthy of a 'recommendable' score.
Score: 78 points - but based on the fun nose I could have gone for the lower 80's.
 

These were not all the (official and independent) expressions of Scapa whisky I've tried over the years.
My Track Record used to contain a complete overview of all the single malts I've tried, but when I passed the 2000 malts mark (and the complete whisky list wouldn't fit on two separate HTML pages anymore) I gave up. My Liquid Log still contains my tasting notes on most single malts I've sampled and scored, though. You can find a specific expression through the search box at the top of each distillery profile. The mAlmanac now contains (purely personal) selections of some of the best single malts and the worst whiskies I've tried so far - as well as the ones with the highest 'Bang-For-Your-Buck' value. But those tasting notes and scores only reflect my own, purely personal opinions.

On Serge's distillery profile on Whiskyfun you can find another perspective on the whisky made at this distillery.
Check out the Malt Maniacs Monitor on Malt Maniacs for my scores on all expressions I've tried so far - and those of almost all the other certified malt maniacs as well. The Malt Maniacs Matrix contains a few thousand single malts that were sampled and scored by at least four different malt maniacs, so you can compare our individual opinions.
 

The Bloch brothers were whisky blenders and brokers that operated under the name Bloch Brothers (Distillers) Limited. Maurice Bloch acquired the title 'sir' at some point and sold the Scapa distillery to Hiram Walker & Sons in 1954. Two years later he set up the Maurice Bloch Trust, a charitable foundation for the advancement of religion and education and for the alleviation of disease. Meanwhile, the new owners went to work on the equipment at Scapa; they replaced one of the stills with a so-called 'Lomond still' in 1959. 

The installation of Lomond stills occurred in many more Hiram Walker distilleries;
Glenburgie, Inverleven, Miltonduff, etcetera. Alistair Cunningham & Arthur Warren
of Hiram Walker came up with the idea for the more modern Lomond still in 1955.
This type of still had a regular 'pot' at the bottom of the still, but the traditional
swan neck had been modified. Within the straight pipe three adjustable plates
('rectifier plates') which could be cooled separately. By modifying the position and
temperature of the plates the reflux of the 'boiling' whisky could be controlled.
The angle of the 'lyne arm' at the top of the still could be modified as well.

In that case the Port Ellen maltings could supply the seven distilleries on Islay with malted barley. However, there are only two distilleries on the island of Orkney. I'm not sure if Highland Park produces malted barley for the Scapa distillery (they are owned by different companies), but since they are one of the few remaining distilleries that do their own malting that would make sense. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but in the past Scapa's malted barley used to be entirely unpeated. However, the water supply of Scapa is said to be very peaty.

The picture at the left shows the water wheel in the Lingro Burn that was used to power the distillery in the good old days. Most of the buildings in the picture were built during a reconstruction in 1959. Two of the original warehouses from the 19th century survive, though. The distillery was mothballed in 1994 but has resumed malt whisky production in November 2004.