Where have you been, man?
I can’t believe it’s taken this long to get a review of the Clydeside’s peated offering published on here. Safe to say, things have been busy of late. For those who don’t know, I co-founded a new business in 2024, called Scottish Rogue. We do whisky tours and tasting events in and around the city of Glasgow. It’s been great fun using everything I’ve learned about whisky in a professional setting, but sadly, it leaves little time to write stuff for this here blog. Still, this website has existed in some form for nearly 11 years now, and I’m not about to let it fade away. Rest assured, I’ll continue to publish reviews and recommendations as often as I’m able.
The Clydeside Distillery
The Clydeside first opened, after what felt like a long time in development hell, in 2017. Apparently, it’s not easy to build a distillery that adjoins a listed building on an untested dockside! Nevertheless, planning complications aside, life was eventually successfully bestowed upon this new Glasgow distillery, bringing fully-fledged whisky tourism to the city, for the very first time.
The early days of any distillery are tough. Dedicated whisky geeks will undoubtedly want to visit, but for the common folk, a distillery without whisky can be a tough sell. Fortunately, the Clydeside’s close association with sister company, AD Rattray, helped them along somewhat. The shelves were full of whisky from day one and, if I remember right, I left my first tour on the 23rd of November 2017 with a bottle of Cask Islay in hand.
Stobcross to Napier to Fortnight
In hindsight, that may seem an odd choice. Great value dram it is, representative of the distillery’s style it is not. The Clydeside was introduced to the wider whisky world via their debut release, Stobcross, a predominantly bourbon-matured, un-chill-filtered single malt that showcased the distillery’s modern, lowland style to perfection.
Stobcross was followed by Napier, a sherry-matured take that paid homage to Robert Napier, whose shipyard once lay on the opposite bank of the River Clyde. This was a richer, bolder Clydeside, with dried fruits and peppery spice, the order of the day. Still no peat though.
Finally, some peat!
In late 2024, I went along to a preview of a new distillery experience. The Whisky Creator tour allows guests to blend their own expression from a selection of available samples. One of these was a peated version. Naturally, this got me very excited. I’m a sucker for a peated dram, and one from my home town is always going to grab my attention. The little sample I tried of that spirit was impressive indeed. Now if only they would bottle some of the stuff…
Finally, towards the end of 2025, the distillery announced the release of Fornight, the first commercially available, peated Clydeside single malt. So named because of the two weeks each year, in which the distillery works with peated barley malt. It didn’t take me long to track down a bottle, though it has taken me quite a while to get around to reviewing it…
Clydeside Fortnight Review
Tasting notes: A fruity and malty nose with apple, pear, melon, watermelon, and even some foam bananas. There’s grist, dusty malt floors and oatcakes. A wee floral touch and then a whisp of smoke. The palate starts with malt and honey, developing some subtle oak notes and then brings the smoke at the finish. We’re much more on the ashy, dusty smoke side, rather than the pungent, peaty side.
Thoughts: In the interests of being completely honest, I wasn’t all that impressed when I first encountered this dram, but that was more to do with the circumstances than with the whisky. I tasted it at a Royal Mile Whiskies Trade Show in Glasgow, and it was one of many that we tried that afternoon. In that situation, lighter, cleaner whiskies can often get overshadowed by bold peating levels or highly active casks. The Clydeside Fortnight, despite being the distillery’s first peated release, is neither of those things. It’s a light, fruit-forward, crisp spirit.
Arguably, this is the least cask-affected of the distillery’s output so far. It’s all about letting the spirit shine, and, when tasted in the right circumstances, shine it does. There’s a lovely structure to the whisky, balancing malt and fruit, and then developing into a subtly smoky experience. It’s really very pleasant. By no means a peat monster, it’s very much its own thing. Potentially even a gateway to peated whisky, for those convinced they don’t like the stuff.
Price: Lots of credit to the Clydeside team for deciding to reduce the standard pricing of their core range in the face of challenging times for our beloved industry. Fortnight is available for around £40.
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