I started a job once and even though we were in Edinburgh one of my colleagues commuted from the Borders everyday for work. That seemed a hellish drive but that’s not the interesting part. The interesting bit was on finding out I was into my whisky he mentioned the distillery in his town of Hawick that I “must” know of. To my enteral embarrassment I did not. I did make sure I fixed it though.

The Distillery

The Borders distillery in Hawick in what has to be one of the coolest industrial type distilleries in Scotland. It is on a similar vain to maybe Clydebank but with a more authentic industrial feel. Really very very cool. Opened in March 2018 if you also think its cool you can book a tour from their website. I hadn’t considers Borders distillery for a visit before but that architecture does it for me.

The Whisky

This experimental series is one of the ways of producing product while the Borders distillery distillate matures. The WS:02 focuses on fermentation times and combines two batches one fermented for 55 hours and the other for 150 hours. Each was then filled into first fill bourbon barrels. The blend available at 40% ABV and £40 was combined together and married to a single grain whisky.

The barley used is also local to the borders area of Scotland from a collection of 12 farms with 35 miles of the distillery.

Tasting Notes

Short – Gooseberry skin, citrus zest & green apple

Long – Fig pudding, butterscotch & sultanas

Official tasting notes

Colour – straw

Palate – fresh baked pastry, lemon sherbet, small amounts of chilli flakes, fig rolls

Nose – stewed apple pie, tinned peaches or more specifically the syrup water they come in and then take the peaches and char them up to get a little bit of charring flavour going on.

Finish – becomes much sweeter again cut slightly by buttery malted biscuits.

Final Thoughts

Would make for a good summer whisky. light, fresh, sweet and chilled.