Cameronbridge 1982 - 35 Year Old - SMWS G4.16 - Mellifluous Contentment

Cameronbridge is one of Europe’s largest distilleries with a capacity, as of 2023, of around 130-150 million litres of spirit per annum. The Cameronbridge distillery was built in 1824 near the Fife town of Windygates by John Haig of the eponymous whisky blending and distilling dynasty and today has several functions, making neutral grain spirit for Tanqueray, Gordon’s and Smirnoff as well as grain whisky for Diageo’s blends and the Haig Club single grain whisky formerly endorsed by David Beckham.

Cameronbridge was one of the original founders of the famous Distillers Company Limited grain whisky cartel and nowadays is Diageo’s only wholly-owned grain whisky distillery, equipped with three Coffey continuous stills each capable of producing 4000 litres per hour. Aside from Haig Club, official bottlings of Cameronbridge’s grain whisky are rare, though in recent years some excellent indie bottlings have appeared.

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.