A Weekend from Whisky Legend

Commander Chris Hadfield, when he was in charge of the International Space Station, said of the moment he embarked upon his first spacewalk, that he could do nothing more than hold on to the ship and let the scene that unfolded before him scroll across his eyes, as an unfathomably large pinwheel of colour.

The contrast between half of his vision containing all of the life ever to have existed, and the other half containing an oblivion of darkness where life could never exist, was nigh-on impossible for the human brain to process. The fragility of the world. The enormity of life. All he had to do was hold on and let the profundity of the scene before him feed into his brain and try to process whatever he could manage.

From the moment I got in the car on the Tuesday, swinging by London for work before heading to Glasgow on Friday, to the moment I sit here now, where my body is dismembering itself in a rush of postponed illness, my bowels are pushing the throttles upwards on the hydrojet propulsion system, and my head is fuzzier than a bobbled Muppet, I can sort of appreciate what Chris Hadfield meant.

This past week has been such a giant pinwheel of colour, texture, people, places and whisky, that the return to normal life seems lifeless by comparison. I’ve just had to remember to hang on and try to process it in whatever way I can.

The push and pull of time meant that the Glasgow Whisky Festival weekend was here before many of us expected, but all of us came prepared; to let the tidal wave of friendly folk, abnormal whisky and body-folding anecdotes wash over our beaming faces.

Upon landing in Edinburgh the meeting I was scheduled to attend was cancelled, and I was abruptly in with a fighting chance of making the Under the Table Tasting that Master Chief Duff had arranged for Friday afternoon, should there be space for me. With news from the boss that someone had pulled out at the very last moment due to a sudden gust of Campbeltown indulgence, I had a seat. I flicked the transmission to sport, set the sat-nav to beeline and pointed the car in the direction of Glasgow.

I made it with no time to spare, dropping heavily into a seat at a table garnished with Seve, Gregor and Rolfy; I was ragged, having managed to park, check in to my hotel, book a taxi and cross the city in the space of 20 minutes. Gregor told me in unpublishable words to calm down, as I nearly toppled the whole shooting match in a wobbly handed water grab. It took me a good half-hour to settle into what was a criminally tasty set of drams. A Glencadam in Calvados stole my face for a moment, and a Wire Works recalibrated my compass for English Whisky.

Cadenhead’s and Decandent Drinks inadvertently went head-to-head bringing epic aged blended malts, Springbank shared a peek into next year’s Sherry Wood 10yo release, Loch Lomond previewed their next Distillery Exclusive value sparkler, while Ardnamurchan dug out an, as yet, untasted 10 year old monster of full-oloroso origin.

Being the sensitive type I tried my best to soak in what was a magnificent opening gambit for the weekend, looking around the room at all these familiar faces, all these smiling, jesting, raised eyebrow enthusiasts in the water of life. And that’s just what it was injecting intravenously into our souls: life.

From the shouted presentation from the seven representatives; one for each dram, to the over-the-table whispered excitement from Seve about the ridiculousness of what we were sampling, it all passed in a fleeting moment of pinching ourselves.

From The Piper Whisky Bar we made our way to the nearby curry house for what would be a spiced sensation of a feast. I sat at a table bookended by Gregor McWee and Carl Crafts who, after his Vindaloo, was floating like the Hindenburg. We ate like kings, with a Dosa the length of the table, a paneer rice dish of shovel-status flavour, and some well needed bready dram soaker naans. This was just what the doctor ordered before we skipped along to the Pot Still for some more amber fun, but discovered a place rammed so full that we’d have to spend the night chatting through other people’s armpits. To the Bon Accord we trudged.

It was a calmer affair on the west side, where Rolfy bought us a round of Ardnamurchan AD/10 and we supped in silence. All around the table were a bit tired from the compression of ultra excitement, and reasoned that Glasgow Whisky Festival was more important than burning the midnight oil. We bid adieu and headed for digs in preparation for what would be a day of discovery, not before bumping into Rachel from Fragrant Drops who mentioned what bottles would be on her table, and possibly under it, for us to try. I never make plans for whisky festivals, but Fragrant Drops were my only prerequisite.

Breakfast at The Counting House muster point saw vast plates of sizzling cooked meats and beans spun around the bustling room to eager faceholes: Barflies, Hallions, Dramfacers, Colonials, Southerners and everyone in between. McWee ordered four gallons of orange juice, which I reckon helped with the postponement of my current disintegration, and it wasn’t long before we were shuffling over to taxis, en-route to the stadium of dreams. More friendly faces, more belly laughs, the beautiful soul that is Graeme from Bruichladdich, and hundreds more cheery smiles.

The festival whizzed by as it always does, in a blur of Seve energy, who I tried with all my might to hang on to. He has an aura, and I can’t think of a finer place to exist during a festival than in Seve’s sphere of influence; it’s a magical tour of togetherness. From Glasgow Distillery we began, with calibrators of Triple Distilled and a nip of a legacy Small Batch Series. Seb was great chat, and is on the pulse with the ground swell around them. More marketing folk means more bottles around the world - time to expand the people side of 1770, now that they’ve got the foundational spread of excellent drams at excellent prices nailed proper.

Over to Rosebank where Seve was sniffing some new-make - £4,000 worth I jested, but it was actually delicious. We wondered if, because all new-make is pretty much now delicious, and given that some reckon the more challenging new-make manifests the most interesting whisky, this might create a future of blandness through repetition. No time to ponder, for Seve wanted to pick over the 300 bottles littering the North Star table. We tried a Teaninich, I think, and it was good, followed by a 34yo Auchroisk - mediocre in my wibbling eyes. We made for Fragrant Drops.

On the way we passed many people all jostling for some Seve time, and I get asked if I’m that ugly one from the Podcast more than once. It’s booming in Hampden, with the lofty cacophony of enjoyment permeating every facet of every room. Along the way to Fragrant Drops we see many of the windmill groups bouncing around the place and once there we see Rachel is in full technicolour magnificence as always; we dive headfirst into the Fragrant Drops world.

Starting with North British, because I’m becoming a bit of a fan, last year I tried a 29yo and absolutely adored it, and this year’s 34yo is as delightful as the younger sibling. Creamy, sweet, juicy toffee. From there we go to a 15yo North British and our collective eyes pop out of sockets - grain this young shouldn’t taste this brilliant. Seve is booming in agreement, and when I tell him that Rachel mentioned a 48yo Carsebridge at the Bon last night, I get a schooling from the big yin that I probably meant Cameronbridge or North British. But I’m right - Carsebridge closed in 1983 and was demolished soon after, so this was a chance at some serious rarity. It was exceptional as well, red wine gums and foam pigs.

From there it was over to Ardnamurchan to see the reinflated Hindenburg shod in refurbished canvas, serving up some delectable drams like the AD/10 (I need it), the new Sherry Cask Release (great), some Linkwood Adelphi and The Glover, an Ardnamurchan x Chichibu smashup which tasted like olives and charcuterie. DJ popped up from somewhere and was asked by someone about any under the table pours, to which he revealed a hand-fill Golden Promise that stopped a lot of people in their tracks. Onward - some went to the next door Thompson Bros. but I bumped into the Grail Girls and their new spokesperson, and fed off their collective madness for a few minutes, which was electrifying.

After that it was a quick whizz around to the Springbank table to try some bits and bobs, a stopover at the Brave New Spirits table where we tried a lovely Glendullan and a fantastic peated North British 13yo. The call for last drams was soon approaching and there was only one place I wanted to finish: Fragrant Drops, and their mystery 9yo Dailuaine matured in what looked like sherry or wine, but no-one knows! I couldn’t think of a more apt dram to end a blazing afternoon of whisky vapours than a delectable dram of Dailuaine with zero insight into what it actually was. Pure appreciation of flavour with no bias. A semi-blind dram, you might say?

Well that event was still to come, but after the festival we stepped out with the Hallions for the evening, drinking pints of Guinness and listening to their musical banter - if you want to spend your time sucking in air between soundless belly laughs that keep ramping up until you are asphyxiated, then go to the pub with a bunch of Irish whisky folk. They’re the very best of us. A delicious pizza and a spate at the Bon Accord closed out the evening in a barrage of drams and shouted conversations. What a day!

Sunday began with a surprise. My voice was so kaput from the evening prior that I was able to sing like Patrick Page; my rumble reverberating around the wonky shower tray in an altogether wonky hotel. The whisky fatigue wasn’t as bad as last year, where I needed to go for a walk and sit-down in the Kelvingrove to reset, but I was needing some fresh air and some food after a bad night’s sleep. My mouth taping technique, which invited mass ridicule from Hallions, Barflies and randoms alike, didn’t work so well after a day spent drinking alcohol, and I woke up feeling like I was nose-breathing through a pinhole.

As luck would have it Oor Jackie was staying in the same hotel, so we headed for breakfast and some restorative fam chat, before a quick trip to the Good Spirits Co. where I swore I wouldn’t buy anything, but Ainsley was pointing Frenchly at a load of things, including a 10yo Teithmill (Deanston) from Thompson Bros. that stood out because of a fish leaping up a ladder on the label - pretty weak justification perhaps, but the £45 price certainly wasn’t.

It was soon time to head over to the 2pm Aqvavitae Blind Challenge, which has become the star of the Glasgow weekend, but not before grabbing a coffee and some extra sweet sustenance beforehand, and getting Ainsley to try Irn Bru for the first time.

The Blind Challenge is always a great way to ground yourself, by putting all your preconceptions of whisky to the test surrounded by other folk putting their own under the microscope at the same time. Every year we all assemble in the same room, some 60+ enthusiasts to navigate the minefield of assumption, palate ability and memory, in order to place six totally unknown whiskies into various brackets.

Roy is a master showman, effortlessly commanding the room with wit and charm, and despite the multitude of opinions on what this whisky or that whisk definitely is, within the space of a few hilarious minutes those opinions, those facts, are more often than not revealed to be nothing more than fable.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said “this is definitely a Campbeltown” and in the case of the 2024 challenge I fell foul of my own confidence once more, placing one of the whiskies in the Wee Toon immediately. So sure I was that this was Springbank, that I even wrote it down on the sheet of notes, stuck my coloured sticker to the one marked “Campbeltown” and called it as good as done. I did the same for the other five whiskies and, as our team captain Desie assembled the answers, we felt pretty good that, as a team, we’d hit every nail squarely on its head.

We came dead last. 15 points total for six of us, with me scoring 3/10. Not only had I misidentified what the Campbeltown whisky was, but I’d put the actual Campbeltown whisky - Springbank 12 Cask Strength - last in my choice of whiskies. I put SB12 Cask Strength as a blend. The thing I thought was from the Wee Toon was actually a Glasgow 1770 Islay Cask Small Batch Series, so not even from that region of the world! It could be said that my trousers were firmly, definitively pulled down.

But we laughed hard. We were jeered. We clapped at our inabilities and laughed some more. Then people started proffering their own misfortunes, including Michael Henry who put his own Loch Lomond whisky second in his favourites. It’s a free, open and honest room of folk being surprised by how whisky can still surprise them. It’s what’s amazing about this thing we call being an enthusiast - as much as we try hundreds of whiskies each year and feel we can pick stuff out from a crowd, at the end of the day we are as fallible as the one sitting right next to us.

There is an exception to every rule of course, and Seve’s team of The Alchemists once again showed us that there are such people in this world who can pick out individual expressions from a line-up, and this year they did even better, getting 51/60 points. Of the eight in his team, three achieved a 10/10 score. Whisky is life.

A bite to eat whilst the room was reassembled for the relaxed evening session and we were back with Seve, Scotty and Desie pouring us some drams from the incredible selection brought by the Barfly contingent. I brought along the last of my Ardnamurchan Adelphi 10yo and the Tyndrum Darkhorse, but it is a measure of how many ridiculous whiskies that are available for us to try through the generosity of the group, that a Springbank 12 CS and a Hazelburn hand-fill were left unopened. Ardnamurchan Sherry Cask Release, unopened. Springbank 10, unopened. As a whisky enthusiast, you couldn’t ask for more.

Midnight approached too soon and, despite the offer of a kebab trip with the big man, Jackie and I decided to call it a night knowing that kebab was codeword for 2:30am, and I was driving home the next day.

We wandered back to our shoogly hotel with nothing but love for this thing we call whisky. To have spent time in the company of our comrades and toasted to the beauty of whisky, what it brings us in friends and family, and how it all makes us feel - grateful for the time with which we have been blessed together.

It reminds us that whisky is subjective. It reminds us that, just because Dave rates the Indri Trini as an 8/10 all day long, it doesn’t mean that Jimmy has to. Just because I think that Ardnamurchan is magnificent, doesn’t mean that you need to, and if someone loves drinking Chivas Regal and rates it highly, doesn’t mean that they’re any less valid than those who only drink single malt Scotch whisky.

We’re all in this together, to have fun, to spend time together and, for what I think is the most important thing of all, to connect as people. People Make Glasgow. People Make Whisky, too.

I can’t think of anyone right now who wouldn’t want to be in this group of ridiculously varied folk, from all walks of life, all professions, all backgrounds, all regions of the world, coming together in one space to raise our cups in absolute recognition of being alive, being here, right now, and loving it.

Another weekend from whisky legend, with whisky legends. All of you, present or no. You guys make this hobby what it is, and if you haven’t managed yet to make it to Glasgow, fear not. We’ll always be there every year to do it all again, so come along, if you can. Ainsley put it beautifully as only he can, as we scuffed our feet on the way to the Blind Challenge feeling sorry for ourselves, when Jackie asked why we do it to ourselves: because we’re going to die anyway.

Thanks to everyone who came to say hello, and to all those who put their entire being into making whisky, presenting whisky, bottling whisky, talking about whisky, sharing whisky and being around whisky. It’s unlike anything else out there. Thanks also to Jackie and Hamish, who allowed me to use their photos so that I could focus on absorbing the experience without a prism between me and the amber joy: a whirling pinwheel of colour is best seen through wibbling eyeballs.

See you next year?

Image credits: Reuel, Roy, Rob, Ryan and the Aqvavitae Barflies Facebook group

DC