Lochside 1981 SMWS 20 Year Old 92.10

Lochside was founded in 1957, however single malt vintages only date from the early to mid-1960s and from the early 1980s as its Spanish owners in the intervening period, Destilerias y Crianzas (DYC), used its malt exclusively for export blends. Prior to this it was in the hands of Joseph Hobbs who had operated both pot and a coffey still, blending both malt and grain at birth for the distillery's Sandy MacNab brand. Some of these "blended at birth" casks have subsequently been bottled by independent labels. The practice stopped with Hobbs' death in 1964, and the distillery exclusively produced malt until it eventually closed in 1992.

This Lochside was distilled in May 1981 and matured in a single cask for 20 years. It was bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in June 2001.

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.