Paul John 2010-2017 - 6 Year Old - SMWS 134.3 - Hello Flavour

Paul John is one of India’s pre-eminent single malt whisky distilleries. Owner Paul P John began distilling various spirits in the early 1990s, including a traditional Indian ‘whisky’ made with molasses - the company’s Original Choice, a blend of malt whisky and molasses neutral spirit, now sells over 150 million bottles annually in the domestic market. 

Paul John is headquartered in Bangalore and has a total of three distilleries, with Paul John single malt whisky made at a large distillery in Goa with 6-row barley sourced from the foothills of the Himalayas. The company began distilling single malt whisky in 2007, launching its first single malt whisky in 2012 to widespread acclaim. Paul John’s malt whisky distillery was expanded to four stills in 2017, the same year that the American whiskey company Sazerac took a 43% stake in the business.

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 members rooms in Edinbrugh, Glasgow and London and a string of international partnerships serving its 40,000 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.