Glasgow 1770 Summerton club bottle 52.2% ABV.

This bottling from the Glasgow distillery was 1st fill Ex bourbon cask matured, then finished in Virgin oak, a bottling specifically for the Summerton Whisky Club.

Appearance

A lovely deep gold, with a nice thick swirl line that eventually heads up and drops slow medium thick legs on my stemmed tulip glass.

Nose

Ooooh, sweet peat, didn’t expect that to be honest, and the peat isn’t light either. It’s very nicely mixed with golden syrup, it smells sticky if such a thing can be. Dried apricots, nutmeg, frazzle bacon flavour crisps, and a cereal note, tropical granola. 

The ABV comes across higher than it is, and with more time cherry Bakewell tarts and pineapple chunks seared on a BBQ.

Palate

Straight off the mouthfeel is rather nice, quite oily, and we’re straight into spicy peat with sweetness around the edges. Peat with cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, grapefruit rind, green apple skin, then pineapple and apricots come through, though the spices do continue throughout the bulk of the palate.

More time and it’s as if I’ve popped a lemon sherbet into my mouth then some BBQ’d bacon, followed by some pineapple, the sweet and peat are entangled so nicely.  Towards the end of the palate are blood oranges, cigar leaves, and grapefruit rind with bitter lemon, it’s quite the combination.

Finish

Quite long in length, and it continues to be spicy, anaesthetising the back of the throat, it is largely a spice bomb and peat, with sweetness lingering throughout.

My thoughts

Boy this was a great release from The Summerton Whisky Club subscription service. I have tried some other drams from the Glasgow distillery, and was suitably impressed to be honest, and i couldn’t help coming to this dram with thoughts of the ones i’d tried.

Well this one blew away my expectations, with gorgeous sweet peat and a citrus zest twist for me, not what i was expecting at all, but extremely welcome. I think it was a great choice by Dan at the Summerton Whisky Club, and a great whisky from the folks at the Glasgow distillery, and it’s a bottling i would 100% love to have in my whisky cupboard.

A big thank you goes out to my Twitter whisky friend Sean – @RockNRolla60 for this sample, and to Dan at the Summerton Whisky club for the bottle image, both can be followed on Twitter using the buttons below, and the Summerton Whisky Club website can be found here.