Dailuaine 10 Year Old 1990 SMWS Single Cask 41.21 Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2001) 70cl

Dailuaine 10 Year Old 1990 SMWS Single Cask 41.21 Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2001) 70cl

1 of 272 bottles produced

It is not easy to come across ancient releases from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Most of them were finished back then when not many people really cared about whisky.

The SMWS are one of the Britain's most revered independent bottlers with a worldwide network of partner bars with one mission of getting as much whisky at natural cask strength without water to different nations including USA, Canada, Switzerland, UK, Austria, Germany and many others.

These older labels from the first runs are mostly with distillation methods that include direct heat which was replaced with steam for many distilleries for environmental reasons changing the taste of whisky forever. It'll get real interesting when nuclear fusion is used to distil whisky. We might glow green for a few weeks after we drink the stuff. Who knows.... but all we know is that the old stuff has a musky taste that is VERY welcomed by people nowadays trying to time travel through whisky's past.

About Dailuaine

Rarely seen as a single malt bottling (the occasional Flora & Fauna from owner Diageo, infrequent independent offerings) Dailuaine is one of the many hard-working distilleries which quietly provide fillings for blends. That doesn’t mean it is in any way boring.

The set-up – six large stills, condensers – suggests that a light style should be produced, but instead it produces a heavy ‘meaty’ make thanks to long fermentation, rapid distillation and the use of stainless steel in the condensers to cut down on copper interaction. That Flora & Fauna bottling (from ex-Sherry casks) shows this mix of richness and sweetness at its best.

At the end of the 19th century, Dailuaine was the largest single malt distillery in Speyside and also one of the most innovative in terms of design. It was built in 1851 by William Mackenzie and by the 1860s was being serviced by the Strathspey railway.

A complete rebuild in 1884 saw the installation of Scotland’s first pagoda on a kiln whose pitch was deliberately steep to minimise the contact time between peat smoke and drying malt, one of the clearest indications of how the old ‘Strathspey’ style was changing. In 1898, it merged with Talisker to form Dailuaine-Talisker Distilleries Ltd. The distillery perished in a fire in 1917, by which time it had become part of DCL. Saladin maltings ran from 1959 to 1970.

Dailuaine is also home to a dark grains plant and processes all of the spent grains from Diageo’s southern and central sites. If you see clouds of smoke rising from a riverside glen as you drive by the slopes of Ben Rinnes, that’s Dailuaine at work.

60% ABV

70cl