Nikka Coffey Malt 2003 SMWS 11 Year Old G12.1

Miyagikyo was built in 1969 by the Nikka Whisky company. Nikka was founded in 1934 by Masataka Taketsuru, a former Suntory employee who had studied at the University of Glasgow, and later trained as a blender at the now lost Hazelburn distillery in Campbeltown. Miyagikyo is primarily a malt distillery, but now also produces Nikka’s grain whisky after it moved the Nishinomaya coffey stills there in the 1999.

This whisky has been distilled at Miyagikyo entirely from malted barley, however as it was produced on the distillery's Coffey column stills rather than traditional pot stills, it cannot be labelled as a single malt, and is therefore bottled as a single grain whisky under the name Coffey Malt.

This particular Coffey Malt was distilled in March 2003 and matured in a single recharred hogshead for 11 years. It was bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. This was the first cask of Nikka Coffey malt that the SMWS had ever bottled.

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.

One of 246 bottles.