Glen Garioch 1982-1995 - 12 Year Old - SMWS 19.3

Founded way back in 1797, Glen Garioch is one of the classic Highland distilleries. After several changes of ownership, Glen Garioch was bought by Stanley P. Morrison of Bowmore fame in 1970 and is now part of Beam Suntory. Glen Garioch has changed stylistically in the last few decades - the distillery’s whisky was peated (sometimes very heavily) until 1975 but the smokiness was reduced thereafter and was cut altogether from 1997 onwards.

1960s-1970s vintages of Glen Garioch are famously complex, with oily, meaty, waxy, farmyard flavours often intertwined with the epic peat presence. Many of the legendary bottlings of the 1966-75 vintages also benefitted from maturation in phenomenal sherry casks. The official bottlings and the Samaroli editions of these vintages are the most highly sought-after at auction.

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.