Glen Scotia Festival Release 2024 is... Swing Set by Jurassic 5

A scrape of metal as a lighter flicks. The audible crackle of a flame. The sound of the inhale, and then in come the cymbals. 

The opening seconds of Jurassic 5’s Swing Set from their 1998 album Quality Control conjures up the glamour of a lit cigarette synonymous with a golden age of jazz – the 1930s. A kind of jazz, swing emphasises the off beat, and became wildly popular thanks to musicians like Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Count Basie.

Quality Control is Jurassic 5’s second album, but their first on a major record label. The six-piece hip-hop crew had formed in Los Angeles, themselves a merging of rappers and turntable maestros, part of the alternative hip-hop movement of the 1990s. Their music linked back to old school New York hip hop artists like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, with an emphasis on rap’s social agenda.

As MC Chali 2na said for the sleeve notes of a deluxe Wood Box 4LP edition vinyl reissue: “We were trying to be the exact opposite of the gangsta rap movement at the time. We weren’t pro-Black since we had a white guy in the group. But I would definitely say we were ‘pro-right.’ We were conscious rappers.”

They were also unapologetically old school. Chali recounts that the band got their name in part from his girlfriend at the time who told him “You think you sound like the Fantastic Five (an old school group featuring two DJs and five MCs), but you’re more like the Jurassic Five.” Even though the group was made up of six members, the name stuck, with MC Akil adding: “In the movie Jurassic Park they took the DNA from something old, and brought it into modern times. And that’s exactly what we were doing. The name just fit, it was organic.”

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In May 1944, the first ex-bourbon barrel staves began shipping to Scotland from Maslow's cooperage in Brooklyn. It was the beginning of a revolution. Today 90 per cent of first fill casks used for Scotch are made from ex-bourbon wood.

But it wasn’t always that way. In the 17th and 18th century, sherry was the drink of choice in Scotland and across the UK. Sherry importers based in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and Bristol were overrun with empty Oloroso and PX sherry casks. Whisky makers came to the rescue, repurposing them initially simply as a means to move their spirit around in the absence of suitable casks made from native wood. 

It proved to be a happy marriage, and sherry-aged and sherry-finished whisky was born. Today sherry is a significantly less popular drink than it was two hundred years ago, and sherried whiskies are therefore less common. Nevertheless they’re extremely popular for their richness and the complexity that the combination of wine and whisky offers the drinker.

On a visit to the Campbeltown Malts Festival I listened to the writer Dave Broom explaining  just exactly how sherry – in this case a fino cask – interacts with Glen Scotia distillery’s signature maritime salinity and oily mouthfeel, to create this year’s festival release, a limited edition, nine year old, unpeated Scotch.

“These days I think of whisky as a transference of energy,” he says. “This is up there, it’s so vibrant. You get a slight saltiness in Glen Scotia anyway, but the fino finish acts as a flavour bridge.” 

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As it happens, there is an official soundtrack to Glen Scotia’s 2024 Festival release, ‘Sound of Glen Scotia’ created by whisky expert and musician, Neil Ridley, music producer, Dean Horner, and Scottish singer-songwriter, Jenny Sturgeon.

Nevertheless, a bridge between new and old: Glen Scotia’s 2024 Festival release is Swing Set by Jurassic 5. 

The final track from Quality Control, DJ and producer Mark Potsic AKA Nu-Mark, recalls how Lucas Macfadden AKA DJ and producer Cut Chemist said “We should do a swing song,” to which he replied, “Dude, I have a whole crate [of vinyl], ready to go!”

Like the whisky it brings the old and new together, deftly switching the swing drums to hip hop beats and back. When it comes to Glen Scotia, where does the salinity in the sherry end and that of the whisky begin? The tasting notes for the festival release will tell you that this spirit is citrussy, with orchard fruits and some spice on the finish.

What it doesn’t say is that after a few moments of nosing it in the glass, there’s the compellingly sulphuric scent of a struck match, a smell that’s inviting, that keeps you raising the glass to check. 

A scrape of metal as a lighter flicks. The audible crackle of a flame. Inhale.