Scapa 1980-1993 - 13 Year Old - SMWS 17.9

Scapa is an unusual distillery, and sadly little-seen these days. Scapa is one of the overlooked gems in Pernod Ricard’s portfolio, but its small size and remote location on Orkney - where Scapa has long been in the shadow of its more famous neighbour, Highland Park - have historically worked against the distillery. These factors, along with sporadic production due to mothballing and refurbishment closures in the past led to gaps in the maturing stock inventory and a history of well-regarded but often short-lived or overpriced official bottlings.

Independent bottlings of Scapa are rare, with only Gordon & MacPhail (who were licensed bottlers for the distillery) bottling more than a handful of casks in the last decade. At auction, older bottlings by G&M, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and the Italian bottler Moon Import are highly sought after, while more recent examples of aged Scapa for G&M’s Connoisseurs Choice Cask Strength series probably offer the best value.

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.