2022 Advent Calendar – Day 10

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Scotch Malt Whisky Society was founded in 1983 by Pip Hills. He had bought a cask from Glenfarclas in Speyside, picked it up and drove it over to his friends house. They bottled the liquid to share amongst friends. This grew in to the idea of possibly buying single casks from various distilleries and releasing them to its members. Since the founding in Edinburgh, SMWS has grown to have branches or member presence throughout the world.

This particular bottle is to celebrate the Gathering of members in the US. As is tradition with SMWS, they do not disclose the distillery a particular bottle is from, but provide cheeky names to it. Each bottle will have two numbers, the first (before the dot) is the distillery number. For example, Glenfarclas being the first distillery they received a cask from is designated number 1. The second number (after the dot) is the number of casks they have had from that particular distillery. So in this case, it would be their 281’st cask from this particular distillery. Now you wonder what this distillery is? This is a very iconic Islay distillery. When you mention peat, almost everyone will think of it. Laphroaig! This is a relatively young bottle of Laphroaig, aged for 10 years in a second fill ex-bourbon cask and bottled at cask strength, 60.8%.

There is an amazing interview with the founder, Pip Hills, that is a must watch.

If you are curious of all the bottle codes and their corresponding distilleries, look up the codes on WhiskyMonster.com .

Country: Scotland
Region: Islay
Alc/vol: 60.8%
Number of Bottles released: 217

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