2022 Campbeltown Malts Festival Release | 56.5% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Value for money, quality whisky. I did GS dirty.
Is Whisky in Dire Straits?
A quick Instahoot post threw me down a rabbit hole of Dire Straits so vast and deep that this bottle of whisky has now been intrinsically linked to their music. It’s funny how that happens.
There’s gotta be a record of you someplace
You gotta be on somebody’s books
The lowdown, a picture of your face
Your injured looks
The sacred and profane
The pleasure and the pain
Somewhere your fingerprints remain concrete
And it’s your face I’m looking for on every street.
We were sitting, of a Saturday evening, after our always enjoyable regulation curry and I posted a picture, on Instahoot, of the Glen Scotia Campbeltown Malts Festival 2022 Limited Edition Peated PX Cask Finish 8yo, alongside the Dire Straits song “On Every Street”. Spurred on, in what can only be described as a deep dive down internet archives, I set about to uncover some quite fantastic live videos of Mark Knopfler looking altogether indifferent as he lets loose some joyous licks from his signature red and white stratocaster. Then the power went off.
It takes bloody ages for our satellite internet to reboot after a power cut, so by the time I got back online and logged back into the live show, another dram had entered the now empty glass.
Dire Straits weren’t the sound of my generation – Doves and Manic Street Preachers were the sound of my youth and, although Manics have fallen by the wayside, Doves have become the sound of my lifetime. But I grew up listening to Dire Straits too, because Dad listened to them and had their LPs kicking about in the house. I can easily identify from 100 paces the sky blue and pink design of the Brothers in Arms LP, with that iconic chrome Resonator posed triumphantly on the front, like it’s flying through the vanilla sky.
That very guitar plucked the melody of a song that has woven its emotional fingers throughout my life, from child to teenager, young adult to ageing old fart. My wife and I have shared the song since very early in our courtship, because she too had a Dad that loved Dire Straits. When she’d go away on holiday I’d listen to Brothers in Arms and feel completely lost without her, with “So Far Away” blasting its melancholy through my holey foam headphones, allowing angst to well up in my sweaty teenage heart.
But it was Romeo and Juliet that exemplified our love for each other. Which is why, after I designed Mrs Crystal’s engagement ring, I used the lyrics of that song as the narrative arc for a book of the process, that I then gave to her before getting down on one knee on the bank of the Crinan Canal, to ask for her hand in marriage. Dire Straits are omnipresent in my waking world.
Another power cut brings the house to a ringing silence. Another empty glass. Another dram goes in. Mark Knopfler begins in earnest once more. This cycle repeated one more time so that, by the point I decided it was bedtime, the freshly opened bottle of GS8 was now well past the shoulder. An indication of how deliciously moreish it is sure, but also how easy it is to pass by the rubber lips.
Review
GLen Scotia 8yo, Campbeltown Malts Festival 2022 Edition, Heavily Peated, PX finish for 12 months, 56.5% ABV
£55 in 2022 – sold out
In opening things from my stash I’m uncovering a palate that is far more able than I expected, with bottles I appreciated in a different phase of my whisky life. I’ve been steadily depleting the Glen Scotia 15 I opened in July and really enjoying it, and have pitted it against this 8yo for obvious reasons – a review went out very recently of the 15yo in old and new branding, and I must say that the scores in that review are more than justified.
In thinking about this bottle and what it means to me now, I stole a look back at my review, written in May 2022, when I’d been drinking whisky in an excited way for just over a year, and I’m astonished to see I gave it a 6 out of 10. In the comments section Willie has written:
Not only am I surprised by that low mark, but £55 seems remarkable value, even if it’s “only” 8 years old. But you know me, age has no bearing on what I think of a whisky. Flavour is king. and I have to say this is delivering quite exceptional flavour. I’m finding a lot more redness in this whisky than I did last time, big sweet, salty redness.
In theory it’s very close to the 15 in character and temperament, but with more time in the glass and some patience, the 8yo is starting to stride off into the distance. This has a good dose more ABV – 10.5% more to be exact and both drink easily, but this 8yo has so much more robustness of flavour, a lot more cedary redness, compared to the malty, softer funk of the 15. In fact, sometimes the 15 in comparison presents almost watery, which is ridiculous when the 15 in isolation is robust and flavourful too. A measure of the ABV maybe?
There’s more farmy, funkiness in the 8yo, which makes sense and brings to mind the time we tried the new-make spirit beside the spirit safe on our wonderful tour of Glen Scotia, with Archie and Cheryl at the wheel, and oor Gregor in a state of whisky fatigue. Burst baw. Aye, I think it’s safe to say that this wee 8yo Festival bottling from 2022, and the full spectrum of flavour it exhibits, passed widely and quickly over my green head.
Marks are difficult for this – it’s definitely not a 6, holy Christmas, and the fact that I scored this a 6 because I’d scored Victoriana a 7, makes me sweat at the prospect of what I’d find in Victoriana now, since it’s probably two years since I last tried that sucker too. Would that be an 8 now? This opening of stuff in the stash is getting me more and more excited for what is to come.
Nose
That typical GS character of smelly meaty decaying fruit, mixed in with a rich red sweetness and thrust through a plastic bag. It’s all spice and pepper, but after a while the more tropical, bright notes appear. Farmy. New-make. Youthful, and I love it.
Palate
Bonfire! Big smokey, burning, charcoaled marshmallows. Flame grilled meat on the wind. Barbeque. Saucy. Some farmy youth appears, coming back to this after some different drams. Plastic bags and malty dustbins, honeycomb and strawberry ice cream sauce, the PX asserts its presence in waves, on and off. Cedar. A dram I keep coming back to.
The Dregs
What’s surprised me most about this whisky is how moreish it is, despite the ABV. Not only that, but Glen Scotia asked £55 for it in 2022, which on this day of cask strength Festival aligned 5yo whisky commanding £105, seems ridiculously good value. Glen Scotia’s 2024 Campbeltown Malts Festival bottling is a 9yo unpeated Fino Sherry finish, priced at £65 and still available months after the festival closed its hallowed doors. That’s also great value, having not tried it I can’t vouch for the liquid but to see those prices for smaller release, cask strength whisky warms my heart.
Yes, after a while, the youth of it all starts appearing but, loving that character especially in Glen Scotia, I welcome it with open arms. It’s a really good, interesting and explorable whisky. This is very good indeed, and worthy of its price. I think I undersold it back in 2022, and so yes, Wlliie, I think it does need to go up a point, thus an improved score of 7/10 is more than deserved. Onto the next (and another bottle of Victoriana purchased)!
Score: 7/10
