Glen Moray 2003 16 Year Old SMWS A Conversation Piece 35.245 54.9%

Glen Moray 2003 16 Year Old SMWS A Conversation Piece 35.245 54.9%

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) was founded in 1983 by a group of friends led by tax accountant Phillip Pip Hills as a private members club. The concept behind the society was to source casks from all over Scotland which would then be bottled and made available exclusively to its members. Perhaps the most famous feature of these bottles is the unique codes. Each distillery is represented by a different number and the following digits indicate that particular release. That same year, the SMWS set up its first location in Leiths Vault buildings in Edinburgh where it still stands today.

This Glen Moray wasdistilled on the 25th April 2003 and bottled 16 years later.One of 250 bottles drawn from a second fill “custom cask.”

Originally built as a brewery, Glen Moray was converted into a whisky distillery during the market boom of the late 19th century. The subsequent slump saw it mothballed, before being bought by MacDonald & Muir in 1923, who later became the Glenmorangie Company in 1996. In the latter days of their ownership it was sadly treated as their budget single malt, but it has always been a high-quality whisky, and its reputation is now beginning to recover under the ownership of La Martiniquaise, who took over in 2008. Thankfully the distillery’s excellent single malt has always been treated with the reverence it deserves by independent labels like this.