Small Batch 2025 Release | 56.6% ABV

Confession time.

I’m Mason and I’m not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed.

I am not blessed with the sharpest, fastest, or most capable mind. It reasons well, don’t get me wrong, but I’m a fairly slow learner and I seem to be allergic to most forms of academic achievement. I also possess, by nature, about as much discipline and self-restraint as a teenager left alone with the internet.

On top of that, I tend to be wildly opinionated and utterly convinced of the correctness of those opinions until proven otherwise by someone more determined to get their point across than myself.

And yet. Somehow, I’m now in the last year of my Master’s at the conservatoire, finishing my thesis. Academically, things seem to be headed in the right direction. My singing career is slowly picking up, securing opera choir places and maybe some smaller solo roles too. To top it off, in love I am blessed with a girlfriend who, on top of being considerably out of my league, still manages to put up with me despite my obvious faults, whims, stubbornness, and blatant imperfections. Life and the future seem bright.

So how is that possible when I am in more ways than one an Arguably Reprehensible Slow-minded Eejit?

Well, I get proven wrong a lot. More often than I’d like to admit. Rarely a week goes by in which I don’t have my convictions, beliefs, actions, and perceptions handed back to me neatly ironed and folded, ready to be put away in a brain-drawer somewhere, where they wait patiently to be mulled over at a later moment.

I’m like the excitable puppy left home alone for the first time, breaking every vase and ripping up every pillow in the room. Having a ball without thinking of consequences, never stopping to think of the damage I’m doing or the time I’m wasting, until the owners come home and I’m confronted with my actions.

But in the same way that the puppy learns not to dismantle the entire sitting room in an industrial bout of ‘the zoomies’, so Mason learns that the world doesn’t always work the way he thinks it does and that no one ever really gets away with laziness, slacking, lack of priority, or poor life choices.

Isn’t that exactly how we grow and become functioning human beings? Other people and life tend to surprise us, correct us, and give us nudge after nudge in the right direction. And as long as we carefully adjust course and get the engines up to full steam, we can set out the new route and power on, building on experience as we go and taking others with us in our wake. It’s how I learn, anyway.

My advice is to surround yourself with people who can prove you wrong in all the right ways. What does this have to do with whisky? Well, whisky also tends to prove me wrong… Regularly.

As an example, after dabbling in some ubiquitous blends, I convinced myself that blends were no good. Enter the holy trinity of Maclean’s Nose, TB/BSW6, and Campbeltown Loch. Instantly cured.

“I don’t like purely bourbon cask matured stuff.” Until some Glencadam, Ardbeg, Hazelburn, and a variety of independent bottlers shone their bright, tropical, fruity lights on my ignorance.

“The best peated whisky is made on Islay! Period.” Would I like to try some Ledaig? Fine, I suppose it…. Oh… Oh my.”

I could go on for a while, but I’ll spare you and move on to the most persistent one. The one I haven’t been convinced otherwise of: I don’t like wine cask matured/finished whiskies. After a few drams of varieties that I didn’t really get on with, I got handed a sample big enough for a couple of drams of Tomatin 12 Years Old Marsala Cask Vintage 2010. To me that proved once and for all that I wasn’t going to pour my own resources into any wine cask matured stuff, let alone without trying some first.

Then Glasgow Distillery offered some bottles of their newest Small Batch Series to Wally who, as always, offered to delegate them to those of us impartial to the generosity and another step removed from the gifts.

So here goes. Wine cask time. Since they too have bottles, I’ve invited Wally and my Continental neighbour Earie along for the ride on this one.

Review 1/3 - Mason

Glasgow 1770, Small Batch Constantia Wine Cask, first-fill bourbon unpeated malt, finished for 22 months in South African Constantia wine casks, 980 bottles, 56.6% ABV
£59 and wide EU availability

When I first opened it and realised how sweet the nose was, I urged my girlfriend to nose it, but to approach with caution (it being high ABV and freshly opened) and to maybe not sip it just yet.

You see, I have yet to get her on board the whisky train. Over the past years I have often let her nose and taste whatever I had poured and the results were always similar: “This smells like poison, petrol, bad decisions, and death.” She’d then take a sip, make a face, gag, and ask me how I could possibly like the taste of it.

More recently though she has picked out apples, cookies, honey, and dough in some drams and loved the nose on the Millstone I reviewed.

And so she nosed this one, carefully, and said; “Oh, this smells like apple juice!” and immediately took a decent swig without putting too much thought into it. She smacked her lips once or twice before her eyes popped wide open and she froze on the spot, gazing up at me with a look that I can only describe as vivid despair.

So maybe no cask strength stuff for the foreseeable future then. Noted. What about me and my wine cask aversion though? Is this where I get proven wrong?

Score: 6/10

**Good stuff.**
***TL;DR***
*Made for lovers of a sweet dram*

Nose

Sweeeeeeet, sweet dessert wine, which is exactly on theme then. There’s a lot of honey on this one. Also peaches on syrup and some orange rind. Orange marmalade as well. It’s quite astringent neat. Glue (not necessarily in a bad way) and sugary breakfast cereals. Adding water throws sprite biscuits into the mix and makes the previously mentioned notes a bit easier to separate from each other.

Palate

Super sweet. Orangey, marmalade concentrate if such a thing even exists. Citrus extract. Preserved apricot. With water those flavours become a bit less dense and concentrated, in a positive way. The development and the finish however become sharper and slightly drier. The acerbity that you sometimes taste after eating dark chocolate mixes with fruit flavoured bubble gum and Maoam pinballs on the aftertaste. The label states that this has spent 1 year and 10 months of its 5 year life in the constantia casks, and boy have those casks been active. I have come to guess that they left it there a little bit too long. The wine casks are more than just a bit dominant. If you’re into that, you’ll probably get on with this very well. If, like me, you don’t, then maybe this is one to brush past. It must be said though, that in this wine cask wormhole the whisky itself holds up. It’s not fractured or all over the place, even though its youth still shows. I think that’s a testament to the quality of the spirit they make at Glasgow Distillery.

Don’t just take my word for it though.

The Dregs

This is a decent whisky, no doubt. I suspect that if you are a big fan of wine cask whiskies, this might end up being a 7 instead of a 6 for you. Once again here on Dramface, the words in this review matter more than the eventual mark. It’s worth mentioning that where I live, bottles of Glasgow whisky and especially their Small Batch Series tend to be a little bit oversold, which makes it a bit more of an ask to take a punt on a bottle like this if you’re not sure you’re going to like the contents.

What about me though? Has this whisky proved me wrong in my perceptions about wine cask matured whiskies? Well, not entirely, but slightly. It’s a bit too super sweet and syrupy for my palate (and that’s coming from someone with a bit of a sweet tooth), but that doesn’t make it bad at all. It’s just not for my palate. I will however happily admit that this is the first wine cask finished whisky that I have actually gotten on with.

As I’ve said; this is good stuff. I’m happy to have it as a contrast bottle and for the sake of variety, and I have a sneaky suspicion that it might improve when it oxidises with air in the bottle over time.

Maybe then I’ll see if my girlfriend would like to try another sip.

Score: 6/10 MM

Review 2/3 - Earie

Glasgow 1770, Small Batch Constantia Wine Cask, first-fill bourbon unpeated malt, finished for 22 months in South African Constantia wine casks, 980 bottles, 56.6% ABV
£59 and wide EU availability

Wine casks: if there’s one type of casks that tends to split the crowd, it’s probably these. Yes, you could argue that mezcal casks are right up there alongside them, but by and large, they are still somewhat of a novelty, or at least much less common compared to wine casks.

And to be clear, I’m excluding sherry, Madeira and port casks here. While technically (fortified) wine, I feel these are categories in their own right. I’m talking about ‘regular’ wine: Bordeaux, Chardonnay, Cabernet, Burgundy, Syrah/Shiraz, Malbec, Tokai… you get the gist. With the ever-increasing prices of good quality sherry casks in recent years, it seems as if wine casks are becoming more and more popular amongst producers as a - for now – affordable alternative.

Some absolutely love them, others stay well clear. I’m generally inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, as sometimes they can deliver absolutely wonderful whiskies. Take Deanston’s 9 yo cask strength Bordeaux cask matured (or the non-cask strength 10 yo, finished sibling) from around 2018, which probably was one of the first wine cask matured whiskies that absolutely excited and thrilled me. On the other side of the spectrum there’s Glenmorangie’s Nectar D’Or (finished in Sauternes casks) which is a whisky I will likely not ever buy again.

All this just to paint a picture of course. So consider me genuinely curious, but perhaps also a bit wary, when wine meets whisky.

I don’t know how he pulled it off, but due to a mix up from the local retailer tasked with providing our bottle, my fellow Dutch speaking Dramface contributor Mason somehow managed to receive two of Glasgow’s recent Constantia’s wine cask releases and he’s been super generous in shipping one of them onward to me. So yes, this is a review based on a freebie, be it one I never expected to see arrive on my doorstep and likely the only one I’ll ever receive. I’m just stating this to be completely transparent, as I’m always more than happy to pay for the stuff I review and I’m also generally more comfortable about it too. While I know I’m perfectly able to stay objective, I feel some people generally disagree here and feel gifted bottles are prone to favourable reviews. I feel this one might just disprove that prejudice…

Score: 4/10

**Some promise.**
***TL;DR***
*Some promise - that’s the important bit!*

Nose

Dense, fruity and very wine-y. Rosewater, rosebuds, with a heavy undertone, almost of a mulled wine, adding some notes of fermenting fruit. There’s a synthetic – artificial sweetness of confectionery throughout everything. With a few drops of water it turns into a full barrage of fruit and orange wine.

Palate

Warming arrival – the wine cask influence is strong. Dry and woody next and again a lot of spices and sweetness – almost tropical. Underneath that sweet-and-spice attack on your senses there’s a bitterness akin to what you get from 85% cacao chocolate; dark honey and dense marmalade. After adding water everything gets dialled up further before it dives into a feisty hot finish.

The Dregs

I’m still very much in two minds about this one. The neck pour and the ones that followed after that really gave me the impression that they dropped the ball a bit with this one as it was all about the wine cask, while coming across as feisty and hot.

Now I’m over two weeks and roughly eight drams into this one and with air - in the glass and in the bottle - it’s starting to improve. As in: it’s also becoming ‘interesting’. On occasions I’m really starting to enjoy this, but what it does first and foremost, is more intriguing as it’s started challenging me to dig beyond that hot and feisty surface and discover what’s underneath.

I think (and – cue David Duchovny - I want to believe) there’s a treasure to be unlocked in this bottle somehow, but I’m yet to find the key. And because ‘intriguing’ and ‘good’ are by no means synonymous, I’ve scored it what I’ve scored it. I also think the short description going with our scoring system matters quite a bit. A 5/10 may seem like a more favourable score, but that would mean that this is average, and it’s anything but average in my opinion. Hence the ‘some promise’ bit. For now I feel I need to leave this one alone for at least several weeks, if not months, before going back to it. Should it change and improve further, I promise I’ll re-review it. For now though: some promise covers it very well. The number that goes with it, is of secondary importance.

Score: 4/10 EA

Review 3/3 - Wally

Glasgow 1770, Small Batch Constantia Wine Cask, first-fill bourbon unpeated malt, finished for 22 months in South African Constantia wine casks, 980 bottles, 56.6% ABV
£59 and wide EU availability

One of the things I hope everyone finds of value around these parts is the willingness for multiple voices to participate. It doesn’t really matter if we see consensus on the scores or not because, we feel, it’s always in the words.

Why three today though? Well, either through clumsiness, miscommunication or serendipity, Glasgow inadvertently gave Dramface three bottles of this. Their European retailer sent the wrong bottle over to Mason, which meant he ended up with a dupe of the bottle I had for myself; this Constantia Cask.

In an effort to correct things, and for reasons we can’t fathom, they sent a replacement: another one of the exact same. So there you go. Mason shipped the second dupe to Earie; I kept the original and now you have three opinions. And hopefully that’s good because they’re all a little different.

I had to look up Constantia after I found threads of Madeira wine flavours in the glass; the spices and the orangey elements, specifically. Upon a quick Wikipedia scan, it seems they are really quite different. Not least because Madeira is a fortified wine and it can vary wildly in style.

Constantia is a far more consistent dessert wine and is not fortified. It’s not new either, hailing from Cape Town in South Africa hundreds of years ago. However, there is a revival story; after being one of the many varieties to fall victim to the spread of phylloxera in the mid-nineteenth century, it was reintroduced at Klein Constantia in 1986, over a hundred years after it was ‘lost’. It is also produced at other estates today.

In the past, and in unfortunate ways, phylloxera has assisted whisky, specifically the rise of scotch whisky. While brandy and other grape-based spirit production was decimated by the ferocious little American bug, scotch was ready to step in and take its spot as the spirit of choice for those who missed their tipple; and those who could afford the good stuff.

Now that Constantia is on the rise once more, let’s see if it can take a turn in assisting scotch, this time in its maturation.

Score: 6/10

**Good stuff.**
***TL;DR***
*The levels tell me I actually like it more than I think I do*

Nose

Tinned mandarin and peaches in syrup, clear honey and freshly peeled juicy oranges - the zest, the pith, all of it. Some spices; soft ginger and cinnamon with a little brown sugar. Hazelnuts in milk chocolate; for UK folk, imagine a ‘Topic’ . Some dry biscuit tin too.

Palate

Chilli and orange chocolate on arrival; it’s spicy and hot with pickled ginger, chilli flakes and orange oils. More sweet orange, but zest and pith once more. Clear honey and sweet spices again. It’s juicy, but adding water is recommended; it brings stone fruits and softens the heat and spice - everything’s more settled with a teaspoon splashed in.

A juicy, but slightly drying, spiced and bitter finish hints at a little fizz too.

The Dregs

Objectively, this is a sweet whisky, but I do not have a sweet tooth and I’m very parsimonious with sugary things - yet this is not too sweet for me. There’s sharpness and balanced spice here too.

With most of its life in first-fill bourbon, I spent some time searching for that ex-bourbon character, but was always distracted by the bright orange wine casks. That said, this wasn’t a frustration.

In fact, it’s been a pleasant surprise. As I mentioned, I can enjoy wine casks when they don’t leave a big ugly, tannic imprint on what otherwise would’ve been perfectly fine whisky. Like my colleagues here today, the tannic side is off-putting to me and you need to be aware when we’re sensitive to this, because not everyone is - indeed some seek it. And yet, this is not that.

I like Madeira wine matured and finished whiskies, mostly, and this is more reminiscent of that in character than any red - or even white - wine cask influence I’ve tried. It is a very different thing. I am conscious that I’ve enjoyed this bottle, but there was a surprise.

I took the photos you see above a day or so after the bottle arrived. I think I’d only had a dram or two from it and already had a good idea of my opinion and score. However, as I grab the bottle today, two or three weeks later, it seems I’ve been enjoying it more than I thought. I’ll take a pic with the phone and share. The levels always betray us.

While I’m at it, I pour another glass and find myself nodding happily in agreement with my tasting notes from a couple of weeks back. I’ve actually come to really love this bottle.

I can’t quite depart from a 6/10; it’s hot straight from the bottle. But… Give it the teaspoon-of-water treatment it deserves and a little time in the glass, to enjoy a pour of something I can pretty much guarantee you don’t otherwise have on your shelf.

I think I enjoyed this more than my peers and the fact that this is £59 for a bright, juicy and unique whisky has me flirting with a 7/10, but I think the 6 is fair and I remind everyone that, in Dramface speak, that’s a good score - and a reward for good whisky.

Now, one day they’ll release some Small Batch from ex-bourbon for us to tear into and I guarantee the team will not need freebies for that stuff.

Score: 6/10 WMc

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

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