The Clydeside Distillery Fortnight [Peated]

The Clydeside Distillery opened in 2017 in the restored Pumphouse at Glasgow's Queen's Dock, the family project of Tim Morrison, whose great grandfather built the dock and helped raise Loch Katrine. The distillery is known for a light, fruity, unpeated Lowland single malt, so a peated expression like Fortnight is a step off the usual path, the product of a short run of peated spirit among the distillery's experiments.

Made from Scottish barley, some of it peated for this release, the spirit was distilled in the distillery's single pair of copper stills and matured in ex-Bourbon oak. The bourbon wood lends vanilla and a soft sweetness, while the peated barley brings a gentle smoke that sits over rather than smothers the fresh distillery character. It is bottled at 46 percent.

On the palate a soft wood smoke meets green apple, pear and citrus, with vanilla and a biscuity malt underneath and a warm, lightly smoky and fruity finish. An unusual peated take on the young Glasgow Lowland malt, and one of Clydeside's more adventurous bottlings. Releases like Fortnight show a young distillery testing its range, trying its hand at smoke while its core style stays clean and fruity.