Glenlossie 14 Year Old 2000 SMWS Single Cask 46.29 Shaken Not Stirred Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2015) 75cl

Glenlossie 14 Year Old 2000 SMWS Single Cask 46.29 Shaken Not Stirred Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2015) 75cl

1 of 272 bottles produced

The oldest label format from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society which ran from 1983 until 2006.

This was only released in USA so a little more whisky at 75cl instead of 70cl.
It is such a delight to see some of the really early editions of the SMWS single cask bottlings. Even better to drink them!

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!

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.

TASTING NOTES

Young Bond prepared the ingredients for his cocktail: bruised mint, Gomme syrup, pink peppercorn and aromatic cherry and violet. As he mixed his ingredients for this Old Fashioned together he scanned the scene, it was a bit of a mystery. A large arrangement of flowers was the first observation. A table set with a curious collection: hard mint candies, chocolate chip ice cream, raspberry jam cookies and salted limes. He sipped his cocktail and enjoyed its sprightly kick. The perfumed scent of some exotic beauty lingered. He investigated further finding cream soda, marshmallow and Andes chocolate mints. What did it all mean?

About Glenlossie

Glenlossie was founded near Elgin in 1876 by John Duff, a former manager at Glendronach, in partnership with a consortium including Alexander Grigor Allan (who would later have a share in Talisker) and HMS Mackay. The restless, entrepreneurial Duff departed in 1888 to seek his fortune in South Africa and, later, the USA.

In 1962, Glenlossie's license was transferred to the DCL subsidiary Haig (the blend which accounted for almost the entirety of Glenlossie's malt). At the same time the number of stills was increased from four to six. Less than a decade later, in 1971,a sister distillery, Mannochmore, was constructed on Glenlossie's site and a dark grains plant was also added to convert pot ale and draff from the group's distilleries into animal feed. There is also a bonded warehouse on Glenlossie's land containing over 200,000 maturing casks from various Diageo distilleries.

Given that Glenlossie was named as one of only twelve 'top class' malts by blenders in 1974, it is perhaps surprising that the distillery is so little-known. The reason, however, is easy to determine - the blender's high regard means that demand for Glenlossie remains extremely high, and as a result less than 1% of the distillery's output is kept back for single malt. The only official bottling of Glenlossie currently available is the 10 yo Flora & Fauna release available since the 1990s. This range is being gradually phased out, however, and it remains to be seen what plans Diageo have for this distinguished, yet obscure, workhorse.

Independent bottlings of Glenlossie are pretty rare, although Gordon & Macphail have bottled a handful of expressions recently.

59.1% ABV

75cl