LOT ID: 1023-422
End Date : Jan 03 2024 08:00 PM
Rosebank 1990 - 2007. 16 Year Old. 70cl. 57.2%. 100.1 Proof. No box.
A single cask of Rosebank 1990, released as a 16-year-old in 2007 by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, who gave it the code 25.40 (representing the Society’s 40th bottling from their 25th distillery) and dubbed it Gammon & Pineapple. Bottled at its natural cask strength of 57.2%, the cask type isn’t known but Rosebank was making phenomenal malt right up until it closed in 1993 and these 1990 vintage casks are uniformly excellent.
FILLING LEVEL
Into Neck
The writing was on the wall for Rosebank in 1988 when owners United Distillers preferred the less accomplished but much more tourist-friendly Glenkinchie for their new Classic Malts series. Rosebank closed in 1993, after UD balked at a £2m upgrade to the distillery’s effluent treatment facility, and soon became a cult lost distillery - the Lowland equivalent of Brora or Port Ellen. Miraculously, Diageo have now restored both Brora and Port Ellen, while Rosebank was rebuilt under new owners Ian MacLeod Distillers and began distilling again in June 2023.
Today, new bottlings of old Rosebank are dwindling, and prices have increased dramatically over the last decade. Essential official bottlings of Rosebank include the glorious 1979 and 1981 Rare Malt Editions, and the splendid Special Releases from 2007, 2011 and 2014. Indie Rosebanks from the early 1990s vintages are generally excellent and usually more affordable 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.
BID | DATE | TIME | |
---|---|---|---|
£500.00 | 2nd January 2024 | 16:49 | |