Glenfarclas 1970-1997 - 26 Year Old - SMWS 1.77

One of Speyside’s greatest distilleries, Glenfarclas continues to plough the same furrow of exceptional quality spirit, sherry cask maturation, unfussy packaging and unbeatable value for money that has served it so well for decades, with the distillery’s careful stewardship of long-aged stock reserves and refusal to abandon the use of sherry casks leaving it perfectly placed to pick up the growing number of disillusioned Macallan fans.

Glenfarclas is a classic old school Speyside distillery and has been owned by the Grant family since 1865. The Grants have maintained the best traditions of old school whisky-making, using long fermentation times and direct-fired stills, and have been rewarded with an army of loyal followers. Independent bottlings of Glenfarclas are exceptionally rare; thankfully, the consistent quality of the official bottlings ensures that their absence is not felt.

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.