Can you sum up Glasgow in a dish and a drink?

Glasgow in a glass 

We all know Edinburgh is a city for ale drinking. And Barcelona is famed for its vermouth. So what’s Glasgow’s drink of choice? Tennent’s is an obvious answer. Brewed at Wellpark since 1885, it’s an industrial beer for an industrial city. Yet it’s a brand, not a style, and describing Glasgow as a city of lager doesn’t quite hit right. 

I won’t knock a cold pint of Vitamin T on a sunny day, but I’m more taken by the city’s clutch of flourishing microbreweries. A half of Simple Things Fermentations’ tenements lager; Dookit’s recent slow beer; Epochal’s stock lager; Overtone. Our brewing scene might never hold a candle to Edinburgh’s, but hopefully we’ll have fun trying to catch up. I’m here for the ride, pint in hand.

Whisky could easily stake a claim as Glasgow’s signature drink. Port Dundas, which once towered over the Forth and Clyde canal, was once the largest distillery in Scotland. Today, Chivas Brothers’ Strathclyde plant is the city’s only grain distillery, alongside newer single malt operations such as the Glasgow Distillery and Clydeside. Perhaps Glasgow’s drink is a one-two combo? The hauf an hauf: a beer and a whisky, two sides of the same grain. Why have one when you can both? 

The best spots to wile away an evening with such a pairing, for my money, would be the Pot Still, if you can find somewhere to sit. Sequestered away from the din of the M8, the Bon Accord is near to unrivalled for its whisky and beer, and you’re always guaranteed a seat. Moving west, the Lismore is unquestionably one of the city’s great pubs, especially when the fire’s on in winter, the last of the evening sun breaking through the stained glass windows. In Finnieston, the Ben Nevis, with folk sessions thrice a week, is one of my favourite places for an ale and a dram. Where’s yours?  

Oh Campbeltown Loch, I wish you were whisky!

I’ve had whisky on the brain, if you hadn’t twigged. I was over in Campbeltown earlier this year to run the Mull of Kintyre half marathon (1hr 49min, thanks for asking). It coincided with the malts festival; the trip was also a pilgrimage to two of my favourite distilleries: Springbank and Glengyle. This was unfortunate for my finishing time, but fortunate for my palate — there having been an array of rare drams available for mere buttons in the days leading up to the run.

Aeneas MacDonald once described Campbeltown malts as “the double basses of the whisky orchestra”. They are fiery drams, funky, industrial, oily and coastal, marrying fruit and smoke, spice and brine. This was once the whisky capital of the world, and Glasgow’s bars would have been well stocked with Campbeltown malts. Today, they are a little harder to find, but the aforementioned bars above are a good place to start your search. 

Like Rothesay, Campbeltown has a distinctly Glasgow facade, owing to the work of architects such as John and JJ Burnet, Thomas Lennox Watson and Harry Edward Clifford. Once the strongest economy on Scotland’s western seaboard, the wee toon was  home to over 30 distilleries. Today, there are three, with two more currently in the works. After the half marathon was run and sufficient drams had been drunk, it was off to Islay (with a quick hop to Jura), for the Fèis Ìle, an annual festival of music and … more whisky. 

Botanical booch 

After the sixth distillery in ten days, I was sorely in need of a less inebriating drink, so I swapped the hooch for booch when I returned home. Recently I’ve been enjoying picking elderflower in Queen’s Park, sweet cicely by the River Cart, and pineapple weed out of the pavement cracks. I use the flowers to make a sweetened infusion, which I ferment into kombucha. It’s the archetypal hipster drink, and has its origins in Asia, yet brewing it with what I can pick in the parks around me infuses it with the seasonal and the local, rooting my taste buds in a time and place in nature’s cycle. I can’t see it being served in auld man pubs anytime soon, but hit me up if you want a SCOBY. There are some beginners’ foraging walks in Queen’s Park later this month too.

The national cuisine democracy matrix: a law of inverse proportion

I’ve had a half-baked idea floating around my head for a fortnight or so, if you’ll indulge me for a moment. It’s simple: the healthier a country’s democracy, the more boring its cuisine. In other words, a law of inverse proportion governs good national cuisine on the one hand, and healthy democracy on the other. Think about it. Denmark, Sweden and Norway are the happiest countries on earth and boast the world’s strongest democracies, but their food is mid at best, let’s be honest (recent Noma-inspired culinary developments to one side, for argument’s sake).