Deanston 1977 SMWS 79.4

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 whisky was distilled in November 1977 and bottled in November 1991.

Deanston distillery opened in 1965, and its first single malt was called Old Bannockburn, first bottled in 1971. Invergordon Distillers procured the distillery two years later, and introduced the first Deanston-named single malt in 1974. Sadly, a lack of interest in it saw the distillery mothballed in 1982, and it was not until 1990 when it was bought by Burn Stewart that it was revived and began to flourish. Now part of the Distell group, Deanston has become a global single malt brand.