Strathisla 14 Year Old 1974 SMWS Single Recharred Bourbon Cask 58.1 Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (1988) 70cl

Longmorn 11 Year Old 1978 SMWS Single Ex-Bourbon Hogshead Cask 7.5  Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (1990) 70cl

1 of 206 bottles drawn from a single bourbon cask

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society was founded in Edinburgh in 1983 by Phillip 'Pip' Hills who, while travelling around Scotland in the 1970s, fell in love with whiskies drawn straight from the cask. After he expanded his syndicate the Society was purchased by Glenmorangie PLC in 2004. In 2015, the Society was sold back to private investors. In June 2021, the private owners floated the holding company The Artisanal Spirits Company plc on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.

It has a unique code system where the first number refers to the distillery and the second refers to the cask from which the bottle comes. SMWS also offers the largest range of distilleries of any independent bottler. These curiously named drams really do have something for every whisky lover!

About Strathisla

What is most surprising about Strathisla is that so little is made of the fact that this is the oldest licensed distillery in Scotland. It started life as the brewery of the local monastery and turned itself to the making of whisky in 1786, one of the few distilleries in what is now the Speyside region to go legal. It was known as Milltown/Milton until 1870, but its whisky was long known as Strathisla after the river which it sits beside. The distillery was renamed Strathisla in 1951.

It had a period of considerable fame in the late 19th and early 20th century when it was bottled as a single malt, but by the late 1940s it had fallen on hard times.

Acting on behalf of Sam Bronfman’s Seagram, the legendary whisky broker Jimmy Barclay bought it for £71,000 at auction in 1950, the year after its previous owner had been jailed for tax evasion. It began to rise in prominence immediately as the first piece in Bronfman’s plans for a reformulated Chivas Regal 12 Year Old.

A major tourist attraction with a fair claim to be Scotland’s prettiest distillery, in recent times it has played the role of the ‘home’ of Chivas Regal. That accolade also explains why this is a relatively small player in terms of single malt with Gordon & MacPhail being the main resource for bottlings. A repackaging in 2013 however suggests that times may be changing as far as official bottlings are concerned.

56.9% ABV

70cl