Cognac 2023 v Manzanilla 2024 | 52% & 59% ABV

Score: 8/10

**Something special.**
***TL;DR***
*Very impressive drams; eyes on Glasgow henceforth*

Dear Green Place

At this year’s Fife Whisky Festival, before all the punters arrived en-masse for session two, I took my opportunity to have a quiet chinwag with the main man tasked with pouring Glasgow Distillery’s wares .

“We’re listening, you know?” Seb said, as I studied the tall art deco bottles laid neatly across the table.

I do know, because for me Glasgow Distillery has gone from unfortunately sized overpriced bottles, to approaching the fringes of the whisky zeitgeist. And not just for me, but for everyone, it seems. It’s amazing how a few key decisions made well can swing the opinion of many.

Launched into the market in 2018, Glasgow’s inaugural whisky was priced like most inaugurals, skimming over £100. It’s nowhere near the Falkirk Farce, or even the regular Daftmill Dynasty, but that instant hit of cash from collectors and exciters gets the giant meshing wheels of business moving. Luckily their continued core range settled at a much more palatable £49, albeit offered in 50cl bottles - a barrier many stopped at or suffered continued umbrage at the inaugural scalp.

The first decision Glasgow made to bring back the weary eyeballs to their wares was to transition from those 50cl bottles, to the standard 70cl bottles. I’m one of those weirdos who shun anything in 50cl, regardless of if the extrapolated 70cl price would still be an incredible bang for buck proposition. My brain doesn’t work that way.

Given Glasgow was asking the same price for other similarly aged whiskies presented in 70cl bottles, this was only going to be a good move.

Shifting to larger bottles was step one, but it would’ve been a damp squib had Glasgow raised the price at the same time; even if most expected it. Instead they kept the price the same - £49 - a one-two punch of realignment that saw an immediate resurgence of interest in Glasgow’s whisky. I took note to have a go if I had the inkling but, up until recently, I didn’t. I guess I just associated Glasgow whisky as something to get around to, despite these shifts, which is unfair but there we go. I’m no saint.

Sales increased immediately and people started to delve into the Glasgow Distillery story. I’ve seen loads of indy Glasgow kicking about, most recently whilst shopping over the Christmas break in Malts & Spirits Co in Perth, where a dark and brooding bottle of Finn Thompson Glasgow 5yo was giving me the juicy eyeball. Being peated though, and not being a peaty leaner, I went for the Glencadam Porty bamstick instead.

A few weeks ago a message appeared in the Dramface writer’s group asking if anyone fancied a Glasgow experience, and I didn’t immediately shoot my hand up. That was until I saw they had a Tokaji cask finish on the go and I was very interested; the Glen Garioch 11yo finished in Tokaji casks from Murray McDavid was really interesting.

Too slow - someone already grabbed that bottle and anyway, it was a batch on the way out, to be replaced with a fresh line-up of new casky things. Instead I asked if I could try the Cognac finish. It arrived promptly in impressive packaging, along with a 5cl miniature of their Triple Distilled expression so that I could compare the standard expression against the tinkered Cognac finish - also Triple Distilled.

I poured the Cognac alongside the Old Pulteney Huddart, Aberfeldy 12, Berry Bros Glen Elgin and Glen Garioch in a 5-way dramathon; what better way to see how it pitches against a 40% calibrator all the way up to the single cask Glen bottlings. Truth be told, despite the Glasgow Cognac being more engaging and more flavourful than 3 of those 5 bottles, I didn’t feel it was stand-out special - there was definitely more to be discovered, but I vowed to come back to it upon my return from the Fife Whisky Festival and try again.

The day before I headed down to Fife, there was a new release of three new “Small Batch” bottlings from Glasgow Distillery: a Tequila Cask, a Calvados Cask and a Manzanilla Cask. Having landed squarely on my feet with the Jura Manzanilla auction surprise, and seeing the rich colour of the whisky, I put in an order to Aberdeen Whisky Shop for the Manzanilla bottling beside one of Signatory’s latest 100 Proof range Glentauchers. Both great value on paper for what they were offering - high strength, unfettered spirits.

My time at Fife Whisky Festival can be discovered here, but the first dram of my session was the Glasgow Manzanilla, because I both wanted to know if I’d bought a howler, and also use as an “in” to get chatting with Seb Bunford-Jones, Global Marketing Manager for Glasgow Distillery, and the one responsible for sending Dramface all those tall glass bottles. The first thing I wanted to know was why they’d put a thread on the stopper - the answer was not what I expected! Glasgow ships a lot of their whisky to hotter climates and sometimes the corks pop off in transit. Pretty simple solution right there! And of course it means they can align every single stopper perfectly without much effort. Little details; big impressions.

We chatted a lot about how they do things and why, but the biggest take-away for me was that Glasgow is a really exciting, vibrant and youthful small team of passionate whisky folk, actively listening to what’s going on in the knitting circles of Whiskyville. Hence the bottle volume increasing and the price holding, hence the natural presentation and cask exploration. A lovely chap Seb, I said I'd return to his table before the festival was out, but with genuine regret I didn’t manage it.

My time was eaten up with Scott and Seve, and the chat did come onto Glasgow and their stories of finding gems in their warehouse, holding their spirit higher and higher in interest as the various releases appeared. It meant that Glasgow was hot in my mind when I returned to the misty isle with intent. Luckily for me there was a wee brown box waiting for me, and the cork was off faster than you can say sláinte mhath.

Review 1/2 - Cognac Cask Finish

Glasgow 1770 Small Batch, 813 bottles, Unpeated - Triple Distilled - Ex-bourbon then French Cognac Finish, 52% ABV
£59 - available online at time of writing

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Bright, punchy, bold, fruity. Everything you could wish for in a triple-distilled spirit. Clean as a whistle, yet still oily*

Nose

Nice woody aromas. Sweet redness tinged with a bit of orange. Lightness. Bright banana. PVC pencil case. Salted Caramel wafer. Pez sweeties. Fruit Salad. Apples, fresh and juicy. Bit of chamomile and bread like the Jura Manzanilla, funnily enough. Sourdough toast.

Water - the tropical sweetness is boosted but the smell-stage closes in - dulls.

Palate

Bright and woody, orange peel. Creamy. Viscous. Sweet banana milkshake. Bit of coffee. Bit of PVA. Bready, peachy, stone fruity. Bread and butter pud with chocolate bits.

Water - dulls all things

Score: 7/10

Review 2/2 - Manzanilla Sherry Cask

Glasgow 1770, Small Batch, 2024 release, Unpeated - Double Distilled - Full Maturation in a single Manzanilla Sherry Butt, 59% ABV
£59 - available online at time of writing

Score: 8/10

**Something Special.**
**TL;DR**
*Massively enjoyable, rich, dark, smoky, oily, dirty, funky whisky. Ooft.*

Nose

Big, sweet, salty and creamy. Vibrant red - neon. Campfires and smoked meats. Oven chips. Chalky rock. Savoury. Wisps of smoke in the background. There’s a feeling of smoked veges out in a field for me - corn on the cob over campfire maybe? Cedarwood sawn under the nose.

Palate

Big smoked bacon vibes. Chewy as feck. Is this peated!? I know it isn’t but it very much is. Reds, spicy reds. Chicken Tandoori with all that funky yoghurt marinade seeping in. Earthy smoke, dense and rich. Almost catching cinder toffee. There’s a beautiful sweet balance amidst the edgier smoke and sharp. It’s rich, dark, funky, dense, chewy.

Finish reveals some red apples and barbeque sauce. Bit of farmy. Bit of new-make revealing maybe the youth of it all, but I love it.

Score: 8/10

The Dregs

It’s real. The groundswell beneath Glasgow is real. Both of these whiskies deliver hugely in smell, taste and quality. The Cognac is bright, tropical, sweet, green and yellow, woody and clean. The Manzanilla is dark, smoky, oily, spicy, maroon and dirty. In fact the Manzanilla is almost dirty enough to be a C’Town dram, no jokes.

The Cognac is a three cask mix, first in ex-bourbon and then a 2.5 year finish in French Cognac, whilst the Manzanilla is a full 5 year maturation in the single Manzanilla cask - 18/218.

Perturbed about the peatiness of the latter, and with a few messages from Whiskyville shooting in about how peated everyone found it at Fife, I messaged Seb to see what the hell was happening.

He said:

So, the Cognac is our triple distilled distillate, which means a different yeast strain and higher cut points when capturing the hearts to give us a very fresh and delicate, elegant spirit style, full of citrus and orchard fruits notes which are amplified by the Cognac influence.
The Manzanilla is a double distilled, unpeated new make, so a more standard distilling yeast strain and lower cut point for the hearts that provides a robust and more waxy mouthfeel. The Manzanilla sherry cask is a refill that held our Peated whisky in it before - so there is the rich campfire smoke coming from that.
We were surprised ourselves by how smoky it was when we tried it last year - it’s one of those great things about what we make, that you never really know how something will turn out until you try it, and this one was surprisingly influenced by the Peated spirit whilst still retaining lots of the Manzanilla floral honey and chamomile notes too.
With our whiskies, the triple distilled ones are the bright fresh and citrus-led ones, the ‘unpeated’ is more robust and the Peated is very rich and bbq smoke led. The Manzanilla release is a bit of a combo of the last two.

It all makes sense now - the Manzanilla full-mat cask previously held Glasgow’s peated spirit, allegedly (for I haven’t tried it) a real peat monster. This single cask reminds me so much of the Lagg Corriecravie - punchy, bright, bold, packed with flavour, underpinned with earthy smoke, full of intrigue and zest. It also reminds me of Ardnamurchan’s Sherry Cask Release. And it reminds me of, dare I say it, a Campbeltown malt. There’s enough funk, enough smoke, enough depth of flavour to really bring you deep into the murky dark world and absorb you completely. It’s a really super dram and moreish to boot.

The Cognac is sunshine, tropical, bright and packed full of flavour. It takes a bit of time to get into the character of it, but alongside the wee sample 5cl of the Triple Distilled (TD) expression, which is also bright, sweet and green fruity, the Cognac is just that bit sweeter, just that bit more full flavoured. It’s a bit more edgy fruits - almost over-ripe, compared to the more solid, straighter edged TD. The 46% of the TD doesn’t pale compared to the higher ABV of the Cognac either, a measure of the depth of flavour found in the TD, but the Cognac brings the full firework display to the night sky. Which is what I’m looking for.

Jeepers creepers. Glasgow Distillery is doing it. They’re really doing the thing, and I’m here for it. I want to get into their world and see what’s happening, to pick apart their whiskies and bask in the beauty of a young distillery putting out products that are affordable, reasonable and full of flavour, un-tinkered, interesting, rewarding and above all, bloody great to drink.

I reckon the Manzanilla is a bit more interesting and engaging compared to the Cognac though, despite the Cognac being really great to sip away with. Certainly a high 7/10 for the Cognac then, but a bawhair short of 8/10 for the Manzanilla because…actually what is stopping it?

What have I scored an 8 recently? The Aqvavitae Loch Lomond. The Jura Manzanilla. The Ardnamurchan Sherry Cask release. The Abbey Whisky Benromach belter. The Longrow Hand-fill. The North British 29yo from Fragrant Drops. How does the Manzanilla fare with those high scorers? Well, in all honesty both the Glasgow bottles have given me huge enjoyment. I’ve wanted to go to them each night, even against the Glen Elgin single cask and a raft of super drams sitting on my shoogly wee whisky table. I’m excited by them - engagement is high. But the Mazanilla more than the Cognac.

Price then, is that what’s stopping it reaching the “Something Special” stage? Well, the Loch Lomond was £69. The Jura was a cheeky £46 at auction but £65 retail (still available btw). The Ardna Sherry Cask is still £65. The Abbey Whisky Benromach was £70. The Longrow was £55 and the North British was £95. All quite highly priced, yet all single cask or cask strength offerings.

The Glasgow small batch series are all £59.

Is that value for money versus what the whisky is delivering? You bet your Glencairns it is. If this Manzanilla looks like an 8, smells like an 8, tastes like an 8 and is cheaper than all my other 8’s…well then I guess it’s an 8/10 from Auld Doog for the Manzanilla, and a 7/10 for the Cognac.

Gon yersel Glasgow. Gon yersel.

Score: 8/10

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC

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