We took a trip to Clydeside Distillery to learn how to taste scotch whisky.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi Cara, we're here at Clydeside Distillery this morning and we're going to do some whisky tasting.
00:06Could you tell us a wee bit about what we're going to be trying this morning?
00:09Yes, I've got three whiskies for you to try, so good morning, you'll be stumbling out of here,
00:15hopefully you'll love them all. So we've got three for you to try as I said,
00:19there is a journey that we take with those three, so a nice mental journey as you're sat down
00:24with the river Clyde in front of you, it can't get any better than that.
00:27So we'll start off with whisky number one, as it is your first whisky we always cheers to that, don't we?
00:33So we'll raise a glass together and say Sláinte Mhath, which is Gaelic for good health.
00:37Sláinte Mhath.
00:38You want to start by nosing the whisky, so you can give it a smell of both nostrils,
00:43you will find that you do have a more dominant nostril, I know, the body's wild,
00:47it does change throughout the day so you can test that out, see what one's your stronger nostril,
00:52you might get some more smells coming through, you can open your mouth as you smell that as well,
00:57give it a little swirl as well, it's been sat there a few minutes,
01:00you'll be able to see the oils that come through as well,
01:02and once you're ready you can give it just a little sip.
01:05Now whisky is meant to be savoured and enjoyed, you don't want to neck this right back,
01:09take your time with it.
01:11These are pretty young whiskies so you want to hold it in your mouth for about three, four seconds,
01:15let your cheeks get used to it, let your taste buds get used to it,
01:18I know it's a shock when you have that first sip, but you should be getting some senses through.
01:24So all of your senses are linked with your memories,
01:27so that means that there's nothing wrong with what you're tasting,
01:32it's all linked with your memories, who am I to say that your memories are wrong?
01:35So if you want to maybe shout out if there's any smells or flavours or memories that come cropping back,
01:42again, no wrong answer, it's all personal to you.
01:45I think probably going into pubs with my grandad when I was younger and he drank quite a lot of whisky.
01:50Did you get a wee dram as well then?
01:53Probably not, no, because I don't know what my reaction would have been at that age.
01:57Well, I'm born and raised in Glasgow, my granny would always rub it on my gums when I was crying,
02:02and I turned out just fine.
02:05But I get those kind of memories coming through as well, like sat in an old man's pub with the fire roaring.
02:11I'm usually still sat in old man's pubs.
02:14Especially on a day like today, oh my goodness, you want to wrap up cosy,
02:17so a dram will do that to you as well.
02:20So usually I feel that this one's quite sweet.
02:23So this one here is from an ex-bourbon barrel,
02:26so you will get the sweetness coming through from our new make spirit that we make just next door.
02:31About 30% of the flavour of your whisky at the end will come from that new make spirit that we make just here.
02:36And all the rest is going to come from the cask itself.
02:40So we use an ex-bourbon barrel, as I said.
02:43Let me just find a stave from that.
02:46So this is a stave from the bourbon barrels that we use.
02:48This is the outside and this is the inside.
02:50You can see that it is gorgeously charred, more black from the charring.
02:54That's all done from the bourbon industry themselves.
02:56So they'll char the inside just to keep that liquid water tight,
02:59but as they do so it's releasing a liquid, sorry, not a liquid, a compound called vanillins,
03:05which is very similar to, funnily enough, vanilla.
03:09So if you're tasting anything or smelling anything coming through that's kind of caramelised,
03:13like vanilla, toffee, butterscotch, fudge, anything like that,
03:18yeah, that's all going to come from the bourbon barrels itself.
03:21So here in Scotland, we absolutely love the bourbon industry.
03:25We love America for all its bourbon.
03:27So much so, there's now more bourbon barrels in Scotland than people,
03:31by nearly a 4 to 1 ratio.
03:33So it's almost catching up to sheep.
03:35So we're really living up to that stereotype here.
03:37So you will find that it is your most popular cask for whiskeys,
03:42but you can understand why.
03:44It's really sweet and really rich, isn't it?
03:46Yeah. How have you enjoyed that one so far?
03:48Yeah, very nice. Just kind of the colour of it, it's quite light and clear.
03:52Really light, isn't it?
03:53So this one here is roughly about three and a half years old.
03:57As we are such a young distillery, we're not tied down to any traditions at all.
04:00So this whiskey and all the whiskeys we're going to try are just going to age and get older and older
04:05until we've really perfected that.
04:07So the colour will all come from that cask itself.
04:10So think of a cask like a set of lungs.
04:12It's constantly breathing in and breathing out whatever was in there before.
04:16And you can see that even more with our second ram.
04:18Look at the colour difference in that one.
04:20Yeah. So this one's a lot darker, as you can see.
04:23Give that a smell as well.
04:25So this one, still 46%, like the other ones.
04:28All three of the ones we'll be trying are 46% ABV.
04:32They're all made from that new make spirit that we've made just next door.
04:35The only difference here is the cask.
04:37Now you can see how different that colour is.
04:39This one here has been aging in an Oloroso sherry cask.
04:43So a fortified wine from the south of Spain.
04:46And you're a professional now at tasting.
04:48You can give it a little sip.
04:50You can hold it in your mouth.
04:51Your taste buds should be used to that whiskey flavour by now.
04:57And see how different that is.
04:59It's a bit more kind of rich.
05:01That one, I know, maybe sweet.
05:03See, in terms of the sherry cask, is that kind of part of the process,
05:06that you maybe go and try that first and just kind of get to know the sherry a wee bit as well
05:10before the kind of, the casks?
05:12So sherry used to be really popular here in the UK.
05:15So much so that the bodegas in Spain would simply send it in huge travel casks.
05:20And that's how we started experimenting with aging whiskey in sherry casks.
05:25But obviously it's not very popular anymore.
05:28And there was a great law in Spain that you can only barrel and bottle sherry in Spain.
05:33So they're keeping all of the profits now, which is quite rightfully so.
05:36But it means we're not getting half as many casks as we were used to.
05:39So we need to be in talks with the sherry companies now.
05:42So what they'll do is they'll purposefully age their sherry and season the casks.
05:48And then they'll pour the sherry down the drain in some cases and just sell us the casks.
05:52So we're using Oloroso sherry specifically, because that's the sherry that we like.
05:57That will get seasoned for around two years and then we'll get the casks.
06:01So because of that, it's more purposeful that we're doing that.
06:04We're not getting them sent in from the bourbon companies.
06:08It will cost a little bit more, but this is my favourite type of whiskey.
06:12What do you think?
06:13Yeah, it's very nice.
06:14It's quite smoky as well. It's quite nice. I like that.
06:17So we don't use any peat here at all.
06:19So you won't get any smokiness coming through.
06:22It might be from the oak cask itself.
06:25It is around the same age, but sherry casks are a lot smaller.
06:30So you might get more of a punch, as I said, that kind of like lungs.
06:35You might get more of those flavours coming through as it's a smaller cask.
06:39This one reminds me a lot of Christmastime as well.
06:41You said that it's sweeter.
06:43That might be coming from the wine itself, like the plums and cherries.
06:47It's kind of Christmassy with those spices like nutmeg, cinnamon.
06:51There's some like white pepper on the tongue.
06:53So that sweetness is kind of cancelled out with that spiciness.
06:57So it's a really nice balance, really is my favourite one.
07:00That's nice.
07:01Now there is a reason why we've tried the both of these this morning.
07:04Obviously we've tried an ex-bourbon barrel.
07:06We've tried an ex-sherry cask.
07:08What we're going to do now is take about 90% of the first one we had, the bourbon,
07:14and about just 10% of the second one we had.
07:17We're going to marry the two together until we have our little baby.
07:21This is our flagship whisky, Stob Cross.
07:24Now you can tell by the colour that it is a marriage of the two.
07:28It's that lovely light golden-y colour.
07:31And obviously I managed to take where we are, Stob Cross Road as well.
07:35Yes, yes. So as much as we are very young,
07:38this cask you're drinking from just now is around five years old.
07:42Because we're so young, we still wanted to tie it back to those traditions
07:45that we celebrate all throughout the tour and all throughout the building.
07:49So our lovely view, we're at Stob Cross Road.
07:51This is Stob Cross Quay as well.
07:54Next door there was a Victorian manor house built called Stob Cross Manor, of course.
07:59And even before that, before Glasgow was the booming city that it is today,
08:03this was a pilgrimage stop-off point.
08:05So a Stob was a wooden post.
08:07The one that was here had to cross through it.
08:09So that was to signify to travellers going on a pilgrimage from the city centre,
08:14letting them know where that post was,
08:16that they were on their way down to Dumbarton Castle.
08:19The castle is still there, just a few miles west.
08:21So with this whisky being so young, around five years,
08:24it's still packed full of all that history.
08:26So hopefully now that you have tasted the bourbon and the sherry casks separately,
08:31you're able to distinguish some of those flavours that we've met along the way.
08:35So you'll get the lovely sweet notes coming from the bourbon and that lovely caramelised cask.
08:40But depending on your palate, you'll get those kind of wintery spices
08:44from the second one, the sherry, either to start or to end.
08:47I absolutely love this whisky.
08:49It's very smooth, it's very nice, I like that.
08:50Really smooth, doesn't it? Yeah.
08:51So for me, I get those spices at the end.
08:53It's lovely and sweet, and then it's just cancelled out by those sweet Christmassy notes.
09:02Where are you getting those spices through?
09:03Are you tasting that sherry at all?
09:05A wee bit, yeah.
09:06Getting towards the end, it's nice.
09:08It's very nice, yeah.
09:09What one was your favourite?
09:10I like the Stob Cross, I think that was very nice.
09:12Oh, you're not just saying that.
09:14No, I'm not just saying that, no.
09:16First one was nice, it was quite, kind of, was it too strong?
09:19But I think that's a really nice whisky.
09:22Can I see the crossover to it?
09:24Yeah, yeah.
09:25So the whole reason why we've tasted all three of these,
09:27hopefully you're going away learning something,
09:29that you know, if you like a bourbon cask or a sherry cask,
09:32or you like ours.
09:34All three of these are still single malt whiskies,
09:36so you heard me say a marriage, I'm not just being romantic.
09:39We do actually call it a marriage because it's not a blend.
09:42So everything here is made in-house, just next door,
09:45with that new make spirit.
09:46It's just aged differently in different casks,
09:49and married together.
09:50So it's still a single malt whisky.
09:52So at least you know, you love your single malt whiskies,
09:55and you love ours.
09:56Well, thank you so much.
09:57Thank you very much.