The Basics:

Character: Smoky, fruity, and herbal.

Score: 93/100

The details:

Anyone following the Scottish whisky scene over the past decade or so is sure to have been struck by the explosion of malt distilleries in the Lowlands. Scotland’s most populous and industrialized region has long been a center of commerce and grain distilling but, with a handful of exceptions, has left malt whisky to the wilds of the Highlands. Until recently.

At the turn of the millennium, Auchentoshan was the only distillery close to Scotland’s great west coast city; that has changed with the opening of Clydeside, and the eponymous Glasgow distillery, which opened in 2013. Glasgow produces a variety of whisky styles, some double-distilled, as is the norm in Scottish malt operations, some triple-distilled, following Lowland tradition. They also produce some peated make, including this whisky, which is part of their core range.

The whisky is matured in virgin oak casks–an increasingly common practice with Scottish distillers–and finished in ex-Pedro Ximenez casks. Pedro Ximenez is an especially sweet and cloying sherry, and that influence carries over easily into whisky that has been within a mile of PX wood. Light, unpeated whiskies typically drown in PX, but in this case, the peat goes toe to toe with the wood with delightful results, producing a whisky that is greater than the sum of its parts, and rather complex.

Restate name, expression, abv

Tasting notes:

Nose: Very smoky, herbal, and rich. Herb-encrusted char-grilled lamb. Charcoal. Dried thyme and oregano. Some notes of camphor and eucalyptus. Underneath, mole and chipotle paste. Quite intriguing and complex. With nosing and tasting, hints of cedar.

Body: Medium to fullish, soft.

Palate: Rich, very smoky and somewhat sweet. A juicy, rich fruitiness vies with smoke, and there’s also eucalyptus and cedar wood. Savory, lightly saline, herbal–a Greek style herb-crusted lamb in a medium sweet red wine sauce. Profound, fruity, smoky, savory, herbal, interesting.

Finish: Long, smoky, and fruity, slowly fading away to camphor.

Score: 93/100

Who should buy it?: People who enjoy peat and fruit notes with a good dollop of complexity. Peat-lovers who are Lowland-curious.

Overall thoughts: Very far from being a traditional Lowland whisky, and not really that like a tarry Kildalton coast number, either, this intense and intriguing dram is nonetheless an excellent and complex dram

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