Inverleven 1968-1994 - 25 Year Old - SMWS 20.9

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 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.