Bonnington Sherry Cask
Official Wide Release | 47% ABV
Edinburgh Rising
There’s always a wee bit of needle between Edinburgh; Scotland’s capital, and Glasgow; the World’s Best City. For the most part, however, the banter is friendly with little to separate in outlook and culture.
If we ignore accents, avoid football and forget for a moment how we prefer our chips served, that is. However, with less than an hour’s travel time between them, there does remain an inevitable temptation to compare these two river cities book-ending Scotland’s Central Belt: East vs West, handsome vs fun, historical vs relevant, expensive vs affordable.
I mean, ‘Embra’ is extremely pretty. Eye-wateringly so, especially when it’s sunny, but it’s almost always under a blanket of fog. Glasgow is industrial and grimy, and almost always under a blanket of rain. But at least it’s still affordable.
Auld Reekie is truly ancient, and visibly so. It’s even built on top of other, previous city layouts that are even ancient-er. Glasgow, the Dear Green Place, conversely, is very much a sensibly laid out grid dotted with garden squares and public parks; very much a product of the Victorian era. Contrived one-way systems and low-emission zones means driving through the busy centre of either is just butthurt and to be avoided, but both have excellent public transit.
You could argue that Edinburgh is a tiny bit more compact with more accessible attractions, but that’s because Glasgow likes to keep its cool spots secret. Edinburgh is perhaps also seen as a little more intellectual, whereas the Glaswegians hog the incisive wit.
An example of Glasgow humour would be the story of The Pot Still and TripAdvisor. Other Glasgow pubs are levelling up to cater for whisky lovers, but The Bon Accord in North Street and The Pot Still in the centre have been looking after us for years. Their selections are impressive and both serve geek-pleasing 35ml pours. But while The Bon offers tremendous, traditional, quick-and-easy pub grub at sit-down tables and fair prices, the smaller Pot offers a selection of pies from a bar-top, glass-fronted hot-box.
These pies are life-savers. At some point in your evening of whisky exploration, you will hit a wall of hunger. But nipping out and giving up your comfy, fought-for seat to the ebb and flow of crowds in Hope Street’s famous whisky pub can mean an hour or more of standing to get it back again. So you make do with a hot pie; any kind will do, and you're grateful.
A few years ago however, TripAdvisor was celebrating Glasgow’s Pot Still as the city’s finest restaurant. Playful Glaswegians had built a slew of five-star reviews heartily recommending that no one visit without booking a fine-dining experience at this opulent establishment. These creative reviews were as gushing and detailed as they were fanciful and ironic. The more reviews read and enjoyed, the more additional reviews were left by locals who knew better and wanted in on the fun with evermore gilded satire, fanning the flames of nonsense.
In the end the owners had to intervene and appeal through social media for the fun to stop, after spending far too much time fielding calls from unsuspecting travellers looking to book romantic tables for two. I’ll admit; it’s juvenile, but I can’t help but smile when I picture the look on the faces of distinguished folk in designer cloth arriving for ‘dinner’ at The Pot.
Funny thing is though, for those who were brave enough to stick it out, they’d have had a blast, tapping into further seams of irony from those tongue-in-cheek reviews.
Anyway, in summary, Edinburgh is a perfect place for a great day out, Glasgow is where you want to live and admit that you do. Of course, as a Weegie I’m biased, and I should be careful not to alienate the Dramface readership living the Hogwarts dream. Best I stick to the whisky competition between the two.
Spoiler; Edinburgh wins.
Both cities are steeped in whisky history; once upon a time featuring huge warehousing and blending houses, ancient distilleries and massive commercial sea-faring operations sharing their whiskies, and all the other transportable goods you can think of, with the world. Of course, both fell into shadows of their former selves throughout the 20th century, like every other industrial port in the British Isles. Happily for whisky fans, there are green shoots of significant renaissance happening in both cities.
For a long time, both have housed juggernaut grain distilleries; one-a-piece. Glasgow has Chivas Brothers’ Strathclyde just south of the river and Edinburgh has North British, jointly owned by Diageo and Edrington, just west of the city centre. But to illustrate this whisky rebirth we need to look towards malt distilleries.
For a while we could only visit out-of-town distilleries when we found ourselves in a whisky tourist mood; Edinburgh offered bus trips from Princes Street direct to Glenkinchie, a private, laid-on bus - often driven by an obsessively over-prompt and grumpy driver - with the fare rolled into the price of a tour ticket.
For Glasgow you had to make your own way to the close-yet-still-remote Glengoyne. This feels a little like Planes, Trains and Automobiles at times, with the train terminating at Milngavie, allowing you to either hike the West Highland Way a while or take a taxi to the distillery. There’s also the Stirling bus to hop on, but this X10A service actually runs directly from Killermont Street in Glasgow’s city centre and can drop you outside the distillery. Although it’s an hour’s toil to get there and timings are fiddly when you’re trying to synchronise a tour, it quickly becomes an entire day out. Which isn’t a bad thing at all.
I’ve never understood why Glengoyne doesn't offer a shuttle service, either to-and-from Glasgow or simply Milngavie train station? Perhaps they do and I’m ignorant. It just seems obvious. Anyway, it doesn’t offer food either, which is also a blunder. Not even a hot pie. So, which of these old established distilleries win for visitor experience?
Initially, I’d say it’s a tie. Both are actually very endearing and absolutely worth visiting. Glengoyne is gorgeous, it has that whitewashed cottage distillery look and a sense of being at the foot of the Highlands, whereas Glenkinchie showcases the sweeping Lowlands and its agriculture. Glengoyne nudges ahead on aesthetics, but we’ll deduct a point for the horrendous visitor centre pricing and, to make matters worse, I’m reliably told that since the new Johnnie Walker Four Corners refit, ‘Kinchie is now offering ‘dram platters’ of food alongside their whisky flights; inspired when you’re ensconced and remote. So, from a purely touristic perspective, the Edinburgh distillery wins.
In recent times, however, alternatives have appeared, and significantly so. Glasgow moved first when a distillery appeared just west of the city, on an industrial estate no less, in Hillington; quickly stealing the Glasgow name before anyone else could.
The very pretty and easy-to-visit Clydeside Distillery, literally built at the side of the River Clyde, followed quickly after. Then Edinburgh took action and unveiled the experimental and pretty exciting Holyrood at the base of Arthur’s Seat.
Meanwhile in Glasgow Douglas Laing’s plan to build Clutha Distillery faltered and they instead invested in the Southern Highland’s Strathearn. Then Edinburgh moved again; the town of Leith got its first distillery in a hundred years. It was also built on an industrial estate and it’s the topic of today’s review; Bonnington. So far, pretty level and even, all told.
Alas, today the Athens of the North also pips it on distillery count. Glasgow is trumped by the addition of the very recent Port of Leith’s edifice - ten floors of distillery and visitor attraction with lush hospitality built right on the edge of the Firth of Forth, and also one of very few places where you can steal a free look at the Royal Yacht Britannia. A clever move actually, since the Queen’s old boat attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, there’s a steady stream of nosy tourists around for the new distillery to poach from. I hope people who like boats like whisky too.
Upon considering the whisky, the liquid from both Clydeside and Glasgow is demonstrably better than the fits and starts that they proffered as their first releases. Two tales of too eager and too soon I’m afraid, it simply wasn’t ready. For both, I’m very glad to say, we are enjoying better products today. Holyrood’s first release; The Arrival, in contrast, was a flavour-packed cracker; the Two Whisky Bros fellas were less impressed but I’d score it a Dramface 6/10 - Good Stuff. So Edinburgh again, then.
I think after all is said and done, Edinburgh is making it look like Glasgow needs to shift up a gear. But haven’t I forgotten Auchentoshan? Well, strictly speaking it’s not in Glasgow, but in Clydebank. So, just like Glengoyne and Glenkinchie it requires a convoluted out-of-town excursion. Jackton is actually closer, but we’re still out of town. It matters not; quantity never beats quality and I suspect the Edinburgh distilleries will be just as tempted to release a little too eagerly, a little too soon, just as Glasgow’s did.
In fact, I fear that’s exactly what’s happened here.
Review
Bonnington, Sherry Cask, Pedro Ximénez Cask, official bottling, 47% ABV
£45-48 wide availability
There were one or two people who pointed this whisky out to me as something to note. I must admit, the release had passed me by. It didn’t seem to arrive with much fanfare, at least none that made my whisky radar. However, those who brought it to my attention were pretty excited about it; daring to even suggest that it was certainly something to uncover in 2024. You see, it was available for as little as £45. Wow. I jumped.
It’s presented at 47% and the outer carton states that it’s un-chill filtered and natural colour; why that’s not on the bottle is beyond me, but I’ll take it. The parent company, Halewood - owner of Crabbie’s and Aber Falls - doesn't always go in for these natural specs on their malt whiskies.
Nose
California raisins, strawberry bubble gum, grist and malt, cut grass and apple juice, menthol and a little dark chocolate. Pleasant nose, despite obvious wafts of apparent youth. Not a bad thing.
Palate
A bad thing. Sweet jam and raspberry ice-cream sauce shatter to expose raw new make and grain, there’s a tequila or a mezcal-without-the-smoke vibe, along with fruit polos, cinnamon spice, slightly sour apple skins that fade to an odd, vinous, resiny bitterness with a saccharin finish.
Water works well here to help marry things a little, but there remains that weird bitter note. This is like a jarring palate reset; the kind of thing you’d enjoy in a line up to wake stuff up. I know there are people out there who’d enjoy this kind of profile, but it’s not for me.
The Dregs
Let’s be fair and give credit where credit’s due. Not since Ardnamurchan have we seen such a fairly priced bottle of brand-new malt whisky. We should point out that Ardna was released almost four years ago now, and also that they waited until closer to five-plus years of age. Today’s AD/ releases are £48-£52 at retail. Still, with this Bonnington it remains impressive that the temptation to gouge on price here has been denied.
What has also been denied, sadly I feel, is respect for time. There is flavour and impact, it has bags of grip and it is pretty intense. But it’s shattered and noisy and young and shouty. It’s uncouth and difficult. And the cask, while making its presence felt, only smothers. It’s like a layer of sweet jam spread over malty bread. The bitterness that lingers on the finish means there’s little here that makes me want to pour a second glass. I do though, as I’ve drowned the first with water. It’s salvaged a little with time and judicious use of water, and the second glass is easier to settle with, but it’s still not anywhere close to my cup of tea.
I sense they’ve taken their young spirit and tried to bolster it with active Pedro Ximénez and tried very hard to stop the cask taking over completely which, judging by the nose alone, has been somewhat successful. However, what we have on the palate are two very different things happening at the same time. Where you succeed in taming it with water, you lose its malty mouthfeel, or you dial back a cloying sweetness only to lose the spice and any detail.
Okay, they’ve brought a three year out as a work-in-progress and they’re not charging too much for the experience, fair enough. I’m not overly upset, I know folk who already like it - they can have this bottle too. But for me it’s a case of take what promise there is here - and there is some - and wait a while longer. Probably a release or two at least.
And therein lies the problem. Glasgow and Clydeside distilleries struggled - and continue to struggle - to get people back in for seconds, purely based on a mediocre first release. Holyrood was firmly on my exciter list until the Embra came out a little bland. These debutant whiskies are vitally important to setting the tone, and here’s another that’s been released as if there was no competition out there.
I have no doubt that the team in Edinburgh will bring their liquid on with nurture and skill and, in time, it’ll start to shine just like the malts from Glasgow. But now is not the time to rave about it. Grab a bar pour or split a bottle perhaps, certainly take in more opinion that just mine, many will love the sweetness and flavour pop here. But I feel they’ve moved too early.
There was also a single cask inaugural back in 2023, but it also came and went without my whisky needle registering a single pulse. New whisky, regardless of quality, has usually been shouted about loudly in recent times. It’s surprising how quiet this release has been.
Maybe it’s just my parochial little circles. Maybe I need to get out more. The only question is; Edinburgh or Glasgow?
Score: 4/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. WMc