The Pot Still, Glasgow -- Sherry Cask Nights in the City

If you have not been to the Pot Still in Glasgow, you need to fix that.

It's on Hope Street, which is one of those Glasgow streets that manages to be both completely ordinary and completely itself at the same time. The pub has been there since 1867. The gantry behind the bar holds somewhere north of 700 whiskies. The staff know what they're talking about. And on a Friday night, when the city is doing what Glasgow does on a Friday night, it is exactly the right place to be.

We've been going there for years, the four of us. Stewart knows it well, which means we always end up with something better than we'd have found on our own. He'll scan the gantry for a few minutes, ask a question or two, and then make a decision with the confidence of someone who has done this many times and got it right most of them.

The sherry cask nights are the ones I remember most. There's a version of Scotch whisky that comes from a sherry cask, specifically an Oloroso or a Pedro Ximenez, that does something to you on a cold Glasgow evening that I can't fully explain in words. It's rich and dark and sweet in a way that isn't cloying, with dried fruit and chocolate and something that sits at the back of your throat long after the glass is empty. Stewart introduced me to it properly at the Pot Still, and I've been chasing it ever since.

Anne and Liz were on the wine, as always. The Pot Still is a whisky bar first and foremost, but it's a proper Glasgow pub as well, which means it does what it needs to do for everyone at the table. They'd sit across from us and we'd be in our own world for a while, working through whatever Stewart had decided we needed to try, and then we'd come back together and the conversation would go wherever it went, which in this family is usually somewhere funny and occasionally somewhere honest.

Glasgow is a city that rewards the people who take the time to find its places. It doesn't advertise itself the way Edinburgh does. It doesn't need to. The people who know Glasgow know it, and they love it with the kind of loyalty that comes from actually living somewhere rather than just visiting.

The Pot Still is one of those places. It's not trying to be anything other than what it is: a serious whisky bar that has been doing this for over 150 years and knows exactly how to do it. The prices are fair. The atmosphere is real. And on a Friday night with a sherry cask expression in your hand and the city outside the windows, there is nowhere better on earth.

Go on a weeknight if you want to talk. Go on a Friday if you want to feel the city around you. Either way, ask for a sherry cask expression and give it the time it deserves.

The Pot Still is already in our directory. It should be on your list.