Allt-A-Bhainne 1994-2006 - 12 Year Old - SMWS 108.7 - Spicy Chocolate

Allt-A-Bhainne is a large modern Speyside workhorse distillery built in 1975 by Chivas Brothers during that company’s ownership by Seagram. The distillery’s spirit is a key part of the 100 Pipers blended whisky, among others. Pernod Ricard acquired Chivas Brothers in 2001 when Seagram’s business was broken up; Allt-A-Bhainne was mothballed the following year but reopened in 2005 and has been in production ever since. Today around a third of production is given over to peated spirit.

Allt-A-Bhainne has always been used to supply filling malt for blended whiskies and the first official bottling only appeared in 2018. Independent bottlings of Allt-A-Bhainne are relatively abundant, with the SMWS, Signatory Vintage and Gordon & MacPhail frequently releasing excellent bottlings.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) began in late 1970s Edinburgh when founder Pip Hills persuaded a group of friends to chip in for a cask of Glenfarclas, and was officially formalised in 1983. Today the SMWS has two venues in Edinburgh, a London bar and a string of international partnerships serving its 35,000 members. 

The Society’s whiskies are known for their unique SMWS coding system. Each cask bottled is assigned two numbers, representing the distillery and the bottling number, so 1.45 is the forty-fifth cask bottled from the first distillery and 33.27 is the 27th cask from the 33rd distillery.

Glenmorangie bought the Society in 2004, but sold it in 2015 to a private consortium who floated the SMWS on the stock market in 2021 via their holding company Artisanal Spirits Co.