End Date : Apr 01 2026 08:10 PM
We may have sold this bottle before. Click the graph below to view our sales history.
Inverleven 1979 - 2003. 23 Year Old. Bottled by The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Society cask number 20.19. A Divine Treat 70cl. 52.6%. 92.0 Proof. No box.
A single cask Inverleven 1979 23-year-old Lowland single malt whisky made on pot stills at Hiram Walker’s Dumbarton grain distillery and bottled by The Scotch Malt Whisky Society in 2003 with the SMWS code 20.19 with the subtitle ‘A Divine Treat’.
Single malt whisky production ceased at Dumbarton in 1991 and fewer than 150 bottlings of Inverleven’s malt have ever been released, with the vast majority of the Inverleven whisky always destined for the Ballantine’s blend. SMWS 20.19 was an edition of just 193 bottles yielded from a single barrel at its natural cask strength of 52.6%.
Dumbarton’s original Inverleven pot stills were replaced in 1972; after falling silent in 1991 they were purchased in 2005 by infamous erstwhile Murray McDavid head honcho Mark Reynier for Bruichladdich, where for many years the wash still sat outside to greet visitors from a patch of grass next to the distillery gates. Reynier must have loved the Inverleven pot stills, as after leaving Bruichladdich he bought them again in 2015 for his Waterford distillery in Ireland, where they ran for nearly six years before finally being replaced by another set of replicas in 2021. After Waterford’s unfortunate recent failure it remains to be seen where the new replica stills will end up next.
Inverleven was the name given to the single malt whisky made at the Dumbarton distillery complex built just west of Glasgow in 1938. While Dumbarton’s main operations centred on grain whisky production, Inverleven produced Lowland malt whisky for owner Hiram Walker’s blends, particularly Ballantine’s. Inverleven's two pot stills were joined in 1956 by Scotland’s first Lomond still, later reclassified as a separate distillery, Lomond.
Dumbarton distillery fell on hard times in the 1980s, with the Lomond still being decommissioned in 1985 and the Inverleven pot stills falling silent in 1991. Bruichladdich bought Inverleven’s stills in 2005, later selling the pot stills to former owner Mark Reynier at Waterford distillery, but keeping the Lomond still to make their Botanist gin. At auction, the Deoch & Doras 1973 Inverlevens bottled by Chivas Bros and indie bottlings by the SMWS, G&M, Signatory and Cadenhead’s are well worth looking out for.
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 members rooms in Edinbrugh, Glasgow and London and a string of international partnerships serving its 40,000 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.
| BID | DATE | TIME | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £280.00 | 1st April 2026 | 08:00 PM | |
No Product Found
No Product Found