Benriach 1983 SMWS 40 Year Old 12.79 / 40th Anniversary

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) was founded in 1983 by a group of friends lead by tax accountant Phillip ‘Pip’ Hills as a private members club. The concept behind the society was to source casks from all over Scotland which would then be bottled and made available exclusively to its members. Perhaps the most famous feature of these bottles are the unique codes. Each distillery is represented by a different number and the following digits indicate that particular release. That same year, the SMWS set up its first location in Leith’s Vault buildings in Edinburgh where it still stands today.

This Benriach was distilled in April 1983 and aged for 35 years in a single ex-bourbon barrel before being finished for 5 years in a refill Olosoro Sherry cask.

Benriach is a distillery with long-standing transatlantic connections. It was procured by Seagram in 1978, the former Canadian drinks empire, and is now in the hands of the Brown-Forman corporation, via Billy Walker who rescued it from a brief mothballing in 2002. Walker bottled some of the peated whisky that Seagram had begun producing there for its blends in 1983, and the positive reaction to these means the distillery now produces both a peated and unpeated single malt. Benriach is one of only seven distilleries in Scotland to still operate its own in-house floor maltings.

One of only 130 bottled to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society.