Our favourite Glasgow spirits shop: home of many a good tasting, a whisky course we've sat too many times, and often a bottle of ours.
There's something fitting about The Good Spirits Co. setting up at 23 Bath Street, in the space where the 23rd Precinct record store once stood. One Glasgow institution replaced by another: both the kind of place enthusiasts make pilgrimages to, and both full of things you didn't know you needed until someone put them in front of you.
The comparison works better than you'd think. A good record shop and a good spirits shop do the same job. They have far more on the shelves than you could ever get through, and someone behind the counter who'll ask what you've been enjoying lately, then hand you something you'd never have picked up yourself.
A proper specialist spirits shop
Whisky, bourbon, rum, gin, tequila, cognac, armagnac, liqueurs: you name it, they've thought carefully about it. This isn't a shop that stocks a bit of everything and hopes for the best. It's run by people who know what they're talking about, and the shelves show it. Then there's the cigar humidor, for anyone who fancies rounding off a dram with something suitably atmospheric.
A few of ours on the shelves
We're chuffed that they often have a bottle or two of ours in. Look out for The Wee Man's Blend and Yer Aunt Fanny's, the blend with the name nobody forgets. Stock comes and goes, so it's always worth asking.
Many a good tasting
What really sets the place apart is what happens after hours. We've enjoyed many a good tasting there over the years: whisky, beer, rum, and masterclasses that send you home knowing more than you arrived with, and usually carrying a bottle you hadn't planned on buying.
Some nights stick with you more than others. In January 2014, legendary Glasgow rock band Mogwai released their own whisky, RockAct81w: a single cask Glenallachie from Speyside, just 324 numbered bottles. The Good Spirits Co. had it, and the band came in to sign bottles before their Glasgow show. Drew was there to get his hands on one, and to get it signed. The shop and the band teamed up again the following year, for a rum.
A night on the rum
Whisky gets most of our attention, but it's not the only thing worth tasting. On Friday 1 May 2015 we were back on Bath Street for a rum tasting, and the photo below is what the table looked like before we got started: six glasses lined up on a printed tasting mat, a cocktail on the side, and 10% off any of the night's rums if you wanted to take one home.
What made it a good tasting was the range. The six rums came from all over the rum-making world, and no two glasses tasted alike:
- La Mauny 1749, from Martinique, made the French Caribbean way from fresh sugar cane juice rather than molasses. It's the palest glass on the mat.
- Rum Sixty Six, from Barbados, named for the year the island became independent.
- La Hechicera, from Colombia, aged in a solera system much like the one used for sherry.
- A reserve whose name has been hiding under a glass for over ten years.
- Wood's Old Navy Rum, a dark Demerara rum from Guyana at 57%, the heavyweight of the night. You can see it in the darkest glass.
- Don Papa, from the Philippines, which was enough on its own to show rum isn't just a Caribbean story.
There's a lesson in there for whisky drinkers too. Line up six glasses side by side and you stop thinking of "rum" as one flavour, the same way a first bad dram shouldn't put anyone off whisky for life. Where it's from, what it's made from, and what it's aged in make all the difference.
It's Not Terry's
The cocktail of the night was named after the old Terry's Chocolate Orange advert ("It's not Terry's, it's mine"). Here's the recipe from the mat, if you want to try it at home:
- 37.5ml Gosling's rum
- 12.5ml Ron Abuelo 7 year old
- 12.5ml Amer Picon
- 12.5ml crème de cacao
- 2 dashes Old Time Aromatic bitters
Stir over ice and strain into a chilled lo-ball over fresh ice. Garnish with a twist of orange peel and a segment of Terry's Chocolate Orange (whatever the name says).
Back to school, again and again
It's also where we used to go to John Lamond's Whisky Trail Certificate class, the course he created and taught for years. Weeks of grain whisky, maturation and whisky history, finished off with an exam and a blind tasting where you have to name what's in the glass. It's a course we've done far too many times. For research, obviously.
Go and see for yourself
You'll find The Good Spirits Co. at 23 Bath Street in Glasgow city centre. Have a look at what they've got in, and follow them on Instagram for upcoming tastings. If one comes up, go. Just don't plan on leaving empty-handed. And if you're not in Glasgow, that's a decent enough reason for a visit.
For another of our favourite local shops, see Canapé Wines in Bothwell. Or if you've tasted something you'd like to build on, blend your own in the Lab and put whatever name you fancy on the label.