Two-Nineteen + Clydeside in 2023
While I’m incredibly excited to work two of the best (if not the best) family-owned American distilleries in 2023, I’d be remiss if there wasn’t a Scottish equivalent on the Two-Nineteen docket as well; a producer that ignited a passion in me about Scotch whisky that I haven’t felt since I started in this business. Hence, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be working with the Clydeside Distillery in Glasgow in the coming year.
There is no greater relief and simultaneously no giddier excitement than the realization that one of your good friends has built a world class distillery that makes amazing single malt whisky. I say this because numerous people have shared similar projects with me in the past and tragically few of them were up to snuff. Roughly seven years ago, I was in Glasgow with Stan Morrison taking a tour of the old pump house along the Clyde River that was chosen as the future site of the Clydeside distillery. This past Spring, I finally saw and tasted the finished product.
What was the verdict? Good God, is that whisky delicious!!!
I will need a much longer blog post to really break down all the reasons I love the Clydeside Distillery and its whiskies, but for all you graphic designers out there here’s reason #22: even the font that is featured on the distillery logo and label is taken from the shape and make-up of the old warehouses that stored whisky along the river years ago. That is the level of detail to which the Morrisons have gone in order to make what is, by far, the coolest new distillery I’ve ever been to. Let’s leave it at that for now.
How does it taste? Not only is it completely loyal to the Lowland style and the heritage of Glasgow, it’s also so deliciously sweet, grainy, and bright on the finish that you can’t help but want seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths. At just a few years of age, I’ve never tasted an unpeated single malt whisky this precocious. There were numerous bottles stowed into my suitcase for the return flight.
I always try to put my money where my mouth is, so if any further proof is needed as to just how wonderful the Clydeside single malt whisky tastes, I took the plunge and purchased an entire cask. That’s how special this whisky is. Not only am I thrilled to be working with Clydeside in 2023, I’m equally tickled at the opportunity to visit annually and drink from my own barrel. I’m fully invested in this cause, literally and figuratively. The Clydeside represents everything I love about whisky: good juice for a good price made by good people. Hallelujah.
-David Driscoll