Teaninich 1980-1992 - 12 Year Old - SMWS 59.2

Teaninich is one of Diageo’s more interesting workhorse distilleries. The distillery was almost unknown before a handful of epic early 1970s vintages were bottled for the Rare Malts series, after which Teaninich slid back into obscurity.  As far as official bottlings go, since 2000 only the worthy Flora & Fauna 10-year-old, one Managers’ Choice and one Special Release bottling have appeared, the latter a highly-rated but horribly overpriced 17-year-old from the 1999 vintage.

Teaninich’s ultra-pure, austere, grassy spirit is well-suited to long ageing but casks of old Teaninich are still very rare on the market today: despite a recent increase in the number of indie bottlings from the distillery, most are under 15 years old. Indie Teaninichs bottled in the early years of this century were often 20-30 years old or even older and are worth seeking out at auction for fans of the uncompromising old school Highland style.

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.