Glenesk 1981-1991 - SMWS 86.3

Originally built in 1897, Hillside / Glenesk had a chequered past during which its name and function changed frequently - the distillery was earlier known as Highland Esk, North Esk or Montrose and was at different times used to distil either malt or grain whisky, or just as a maltings for other distilleries.

Diageo forerunners DCL took over what was then the Montrose grain distillery in 1953, and turned it into the Hillside malt whisky distillery in 1964 under their Scottish Malt Distillers subsidiary. Hillside produced old style grassy, minerally single malt whisky until its closure in 1985, by which time the name had been changed, for the final time, to Glenesk.

Hillside / Glenesk was never officially bottled in its lifetime; at auction, the best Hillsides are the official Rare Malts editions released between 1995-97, while most independent bottlings use the Glenesk name.

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.