Three new whiskies from Glasgow Distillery

Since the release of its first whisky, the Glasgow distillery seems to be celebrating successes alone. Subsequent editions of the whisky produced there are winning favorable reviews, and the circle of its admirers is constantly growing. Interestingly, in naming their whisky, the distillery's owners decided to refer to the founding date of the city's first historic distillery rather than the name of the distillery. It was Dundashill, founded in 1770. So, for several years now we have been getting Glasgow 1770 whisky from the Glasgow distillery.

Glasgow produces whisky based on peated and peatless malt, and the production process uses both double and triple distillation regimes. The latter is a reference to the tradition of the Lowlands region, where triple distillation has just been used for centuries. All this, plus the possibility of using a variety of barrels in the maturation process, gives an extremely wide range of possibilities, which Glasgow distillers are more than willing and skillful to use.

The distillery has just announced the release of three limited editions as part of its Small Batch Series collection. These will be whiskies subjected to additional maturation in three different types of extremely interesting casks.

Glasgow 1770 Calvados Cask Finish (58.7 vol.) is a double-distilled whisky made from peat-free malt. Distillation took place on May 23, 2017, and the fresh spirit went into a first-fill bourbon barrel. He then ended up in a calvados barrel, where he spent 2 years and 5 months. Edition limited to 270 bottles.

Glasgow 1770 Manzanilla Sherry Cask (59% vol.) is also a double-distilled distillate made from peat-free malt. In this case, distillation took place on March 12, 2018, and the fresh spirit went into a manzanilla sherry refill barrel. An added flavor (and I mean that literally) is that this cask was previously used to mature peated whisky. Edition limited to 813 bottles.

Glasgow 1770 Tequila Cask Finish (55.3% vol.) is a triple-distilled spirit, poured into a first-fill bourbon barrel on February 3, 2018. He spent the last 2 years and 6 months of his maturation in a tequila barrel. Edition limited to 272 bottles.

Each of the listed editions has been priced at retail at £59 per bottle.

It is worth mentioning at this point that not so long ago, two of the three new editions would have been impossible and could have been met with a strong reaction from the Scotch Whisky Association. Until the introduction of the new liberalized whisky maturation regulations in the second half of 2019, only barrels traditionally used for whisky storage were allowed for maturation." Among them were certainly no tequila barrels, and the use of calvados barrels was, to put it mildly, troublesome. The changes introduced in 2019 allowed the use of barrels from a wide range of liquors, including just calvados, tequila or mezcal.

The Glasgow distillery opened in 2015 as the first Scotch malt whisky plant in this largest Scottish city in about a century. Glasgow 1770 whisky debuted in April 2019, and already in August a decision was made to expand the plant's production capacity. The number of alembics was doubled, thus doubling the production potential of the distillery. The distillery produces not only whiskey, but also gin and vodka.

Glasgow is also home to the Clydeside distillery, located on the River Clyde, and on the outskirts of the city you'll find a true veteran among Lowlands distilleries, namely Auchentoshan.


[28.02.2024 / photo: Glasgow Distillery]