Glasgow 1770 8yo Peated Bourbon Cask
Batch #2 Official Bottling | 54% ABV
Score: 6/10
Good stuff.
TL;DR
An already enjoyable diamond in the rough
Don’t like cats
It was the middle of a heat wave this summer when I enjoyed a morning in the garden.
It’s a communal garden for our building made up of a few trees on a big lawn that stretches along the full width of the building, surrounded by a tall hedge. It’s not much and you can see how the company that owns the building has tried to keep it low-maintenance, but in all honesty, when living in a city any green you can see out of your window is a blessing.
I have access to this garden through my own garden doors, just like all the other people living at the rear on the ground floor. So, especially on summer evenings, it’s a hub of activity for all the conservatoire, drama, and dance students. There’s bbq-ing, partying, music making, and many beers. In the mornings though it is a perfect, quiet little green oasis to enjoy some solitary silence with the sun shining in your face.
On this particular morning I was enjoying my coffee, taking in the stillness and the slight breeze before the temperatures inevitably shot up to thirty-five degrees or higher in no time, when one of the girls living a few doors away from me came outside to collect some herbs from the small raised kitchen garden that a few people tend to.
She was barely back inside when another girl a few doors closer opened the window so her two cats could go and have a morning stroll. I watched as one of them ran straight to the kitchen garden, jumped in, and promptly crapped all over the herbs. A recurring sight, I’m afraid.
I don’t think the girl who picked the herbs knows that the cats use the kitchen garden as a public litter box. I also assume the cat knows full well that those herbs are for people to consume, but craps on them anyway out of sheer malevolence.
The cat in question is a totally black, long-haired ball of speed with big bright green eyes. When she watches you from a distance all you see is a black void with those piercing orbs staring straight into your soul. A menace, to those not in the know. Then you get to know her a bit and find out she’s actually a really shy creature who likes belly scratches when she’s gotten used to you and has decided you’re harmless. Her name is Spoon.
Her brother-from-another-mother partner in crime is called Toot. This grey and white tabby cat is more social and much braver. He’s a bit more energetic and is usually the one walking in front, blazing the trail, when they patrol the gardens together.
They do so two or three times a day. Mornings and evenings, weather permitting, and more often on sunny days. They’ll patrol the perimeter of the gardens, inspect the hedges, check out newly fallen branches, and chase mice. And sometimes my apartment becomes part of the patrol perimeter. They’ll either jump up on the window sill or sneak in through the open garden doors and inquisitively work their way around my rooms. Especially Toot, who has a knack for sneaking in without making a sound and scaring the living daylights out of me when he comes rushing back out of the hallway the moment he hears me coming.
Now is probably a good time to admit that I don’t like cats. Or rather, didn’t. I have my reasons.
As a child and into my twenties, every cat I had ever come across was mean, violent, asocial, arrogant, or resentful. Most were an exciting combination of multiple of these traits. I rarely walked away from an encounter with a cat without nasty gashes on my shins, arms, or hands.
I know what you’re thinking. It must be me. I must be as clumsy with animals as Lennie, out of ‘Of Mice and Men’. But I can assure you, as someone who grew up with hamsters, dogs and even alpacas around, this is not the case. Maybe it was just bad luck that all the cats I had met were Satan’s rude, ill-meaning representatives on earth.
Then I moved to this new place. One spring morning I found myself having breakfast in the garden with my love, when we were approached by a beautiful grey and white cat. She jumped on the window sill, adjacent to our table, and began purring. She just sat there and my girlfriend started petting her, which she allowed. Even I had to admit that she was a gorgeous animal, cat or not. Her name, apparently, was Mouse and her owner lived a few doors away from me.
In the warm spring days that followed the garden doors were open frequently and Mouse started to come in on a regular basis, checking the place out, slowly exploring more and more until eventually she walked in and out whenever she felt like it.
I thought it quite amusing, seeing her walk around my rooms as if she owned the place. There was just one niggle: I caught her attempting to hop onto the furniture on multiple occasions, but I wasn’t too keen on getting hairs or scratch marks on my couch and my chairs, so I didn’t allow it. She very obviously did want to make use of them though.
And so being the hardened, unwavering and steadfast man I am, I caved. I led her to my wingback chair by the doors and she gratefully hopped on and made herself comfortable.
For maybe the first time ever, a cat was happily purring away under my touch as I sat beside her on the ottoman, petting her. She started to eat biscuits and eventually fell asleep. She snoozed off and on for three hours or so as I went about my day, checking in every now and then, simply enjoying her company.
The day after, I was doing groceries and found myself agonising over which cat treats to buy and offer to Mouse the next time she’d come around. It was the least I could do to make sure I was hospitable, right?
What had happened? I went from anti-cat to pro-cat in no time at all. My girlfriend instantly fell for her as well and delighted in making me admit that I had started to like cats. She’s been convinced since then that we’ll definitely have one sooner or later.
Mouse became a regular guest and friend, stopping by almost every day for some scratches, a treat, or to just hang out and nap in the chair. She’d meow as if offended if the window wouldn’t be open for her to come in upon arrival, and I'd make it up to her by showing her some extra love. I had gone all soft.
Half a year later, we started seeing her less and then heard that she had passed away. Old age, apparently. Turns out she was 15 years old. We were quite sad about it for a while.
Her owner moved, but her neighbour moved in with Toot and Spoon, and though they are much less sociable and affectionate than Mouse, we still enjoy them coming in every now and then and watching them play in the garden. Cats, as it turns out, are fascinating little creatures to watch. Maybe more-so than dogs, although I’ll always remain a dog person first. I’m afraid my girlfriend was correct, as she tends to be, and that sooner or later we might have one ourselves.
And now we get to the part of the piece where I make savvy use of this story to find a clever segue into the review of this specific whisky.
Yeah. I’ll be honest; I’ve got nothing.
Review
Glasgow 1770 8yo Peated Bourbon Cask, Official Small Batch Release #2, 54% ABV
£59 RRP & general availability
This bottle found its way to me via the Dramface Deflection System, when Glasgow Distillery wanted to send us a bottle of each of their new annual releases to review. As always, Captain Wally asked who was interested in one and I raised my hand, just like last year when I received a bottle of their Constantia wine cask release via that same system.
It’s worth mentioning that that particular bottle, although scored a 6/10 by me at the time, has slipped to a 5/10 over a year later. Oxidisation in the bottle over time hasn’t been that kind to it. Odd, for a cask strength dram. I remember our man Earie scored it a 4/10 at the time.
I only mention this to assure you of that which you already know if you are a regular visitor on our pages. The distilleries that send us freebies aren’t guaranteed positive noise being made about their product. We will review their wares as if we had paid for them ourselves. We are not influencers drawn by fancy gifts or free products.
What those producers, and more importantly you, are guaranteed, however, is honest feedback. Sincere opinions from enthusiasts who care. A lot. And I think some producers, like Glasgow for example, know this. I think they have enough confidence in the products they release so as to not be afraid of what we might write, even if it’s not necessarily all positive.
If they get a good review, it’s positive attention for their brand and it’ll stimulate sales. If they get a bad review and take comments and potential consensus into account, that might provide them valuable feedback and insight on what people might want and expect from their products. And so it came to be that a while later this handsome bottle arrived on my doorstep.
Part of their Annual Releases series, this is Batch 2 of this specific bottling , and was released alongside their port cask and sherry cask offerings, both already reviewed by Earie and Fletcher. Batch 1 of this bourbon cask matured release was reviewed last year by Fergus.
It’s a small batch release of four peated ex-bourbon barrels and four unpeated ex-bourbon barrels, and was bottled as an 8yo at batch strength. It proudly states its natural colour and lack of chill filtration on the label. Good!
Score: 6/10
Good stuff.
TL;DR
An already enjoyable diamond in the rough
Nose
Smokey peat! It’s equal parts peated spirit and un-peated spirit that went into this, but if someone told me this was all peated stock I wouldn’t have questioned them. That’s coming from someone who suffers from peat blindness, by the way.
Bananas, both real, near-ripe ones and Haribo ones. There’s classic ex-bourbon cask mellow vanilla character. Sour winegums. Melon. Cigarette ash. There’s a medicinal, industrial denseness to it. The peat smoke on this is closer to Ledaig and Ballechin than briny Ardbeg.
Palate
An intense, hot arrival. Spicy, spikey alcohol! A shock. There’s an almost wasabi-like, wince-inducing kick to it neat when you first open the bottle. That improves once you get past the shoulder and give it some time to breathe. Depending on your mood and your palate, sometimes it’s almost Laphroaig-like; medicine cabinet, but oilier, gloopier. Mouth-coating.
It’s closed-off and the vanilla has to punch its way through the sharp pepperiness that dominates the finish. Yeah, this will clear your sinuses alright. After addition of water and a generous amount of time to open up, the experience improves. It opens up to reveal some bright summer fruits, but it’s all about the industrial, vanilla-soaked peppery peatiness, this one.
The Dregs
When I first opened this, the shock of the heat and the peppery, peaty vanilla gloopiness had me all excited for what this whisky would do if I’d have it open for a while. I described the neck pour to my fellow writers as Kilkerran 8yo that took steroids, went to a boxing gym and got tattoos. I expected it to grow significantly over time and climb up to a very high 7 or maybe even an 8. That hasn’t quite happened. It’s a good experience, but I feel that there’s more potential in this.
It responds positively to dilution in the glass and it’s a full-on, brash, industrial, big character. It’s just that, much like Earie experienced with the sherry cask release, I feel that this big character is still a bit young and doesn’t yet know what it wants to be when it grows up.
Sometimes it acts like peaty Kilkerran, but without quite that level of sophistication and depth. Sometimes it cosplays as an Edradour Ballechin, but doesn’t quite go there because it doesn’t have that grungy, dirty heft. Sometimes the nose and arrival on the palate can even fool you into thinking it’s Laphroaig, but not for long.
It feels a bit like a teenager with many different interests that wants to go in all these directions, but hasn’t quite figured out which path to follow yet. It is its own style of peat and smoke and, with an extra two or three years of maturation, I feel like this would develop more of its own character and would sing out of the glass with more depth to back up the loudness.
Nevertheless, it is very enjoyable. I really like this style of first fill bourbon casks that have a light and bright influence on the whisky without turning it into a one-dimensional, over-oaked, over-cooked disappointment, like for example, Glen Scotia’s 12yo, in my opinion.
I’ve really enjoyed Charlie’s recent habit of telling us whether or not he would replace a bottle when it’s finished. So what about this one?
In the case of this Glasgow 8yo, this bottle will last me a few years and when it’s gone I don’t think I’ll miss a backup of this same one. But when it is finally gone I will be on the lookout for a similar release from Glasgow Distillery, in the hope that some more maturity and depth finds its way into the makeup. Keep up the good work!
Now the end of the review. A quick circling back to the preamble to round it off nicely, maybe with a witty joke or a wordplay?
Ex-bourbon cat matured? Cat strength something? Nope, still nothing.
Maybe, when I think I don’t like something because it’s a little less-approachable, I just need the right moment, or the right bottle, to completely change my mind. Maybe I’ll fall in love when this Glasgow approaches fifteen years old. Just like Mouse.
To your health, dear reader..
Score: 6/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. MM
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