What will SMWS Distillery 126 be...?Posted on 2009/04/25 10:22:30 (April 2009). I had a tantalising mail from the SMWS this morning announcing the release of a first bottling from a new distillery - distillery 126.
The SMWS give all their distilleries a code - you can see all of these here, however they never explicitly name any of them in their own literature - I believe this stems from some distilleries not wanting the occasionally quite unusual casks bottled by the Society to be associated with their standard brand image.
The codes are allocated in order of when they first bottled from that distillery, and to date we're up to 125. There are around 100 active or recently active Scottish distilleries in total, so that pretty much covers all of them - with a few extras added in for some of the Irish and Japanese distilleries.
So they've announced they're about to launch a bottling from their 126th distillery, but they aren't actually going to tell us what it is!
This got me trying to guess what this was going to be. It seemed there are four possible options for what distillery 126 might be:
A) An early bottling from a new distillery which has just come of age.
B) An established Scottish distillery that had somehow slipped through the net previously.
C) Another of the Japanese distilleries - the SMWS have only bottled four of these so far, and there are around ten in total (see here.
D) A bottling from one of the distilleries somewhere else in the world - England, Wales, Ireland, or further afield...?
So, first of all, new distilleries. Could this be a very early bottling from Kilchoman...? Although their first official whisky - a 3 year old - is planned to go on general release in September, their very first cask was laid down in December 2005, and so as the SMWS will only be bottling a single cask, Kilchoman will have a few by now which will be just over 3 years old, by which point it can officially be called whisky.
Alternatively, Kilkerran, the new Campbeltown distillery opened by the owners of Springbank (in what used to be Glengyle distillery) started distilling in 2004 - so by now there would be 5 year old casks available. Thinking about it, there have been references to this new distillery in some of the SMWS' tasting notes of late - could these have been subtle hints of what is to come...?
Or how about a well established Scottish distillery that the Society has, for whatever reason, never got around to bottling before...? Comparing the society's list to this list I could only find two such distilleries:
Ben Wyvis - built as a malt distilling annex to the grain distillery at Invergordon. It closed in the 1970s and it seems there never really was much output which ended up as a single malt - most of it went to blending. Seems unlikely the SMWS would be bottling anything from here at this stage. As an interesting aside the stills from Ben Wyvis are now active once again in the new Kilkerran distillery in Campbeltown.
The only other omission I could find was the slightly confusingly named Speyside Distillery on the site of the old Drumguish distillery, which started distilling in 1990.
What about the rest of the UK?
St. George's, the one and only English whisky distillery, is almost exactly a year behind Kilchoman - so they won't have any three year old casks until the end of this year, or the start of 2010. I'm pretty sure the society has never bottled new make or sub 3 year old spirit so I think we can rule this out.
Penderyn, the equally unique Welsh whisky distillery, started distilling in 1998 - so they're comparatively well established by now, and to date have never been bottled by the SMWS. They do produce malt whisky - albeit that the style is quite different to the Scotch (or even Japanese) malts normally bottled by the society - but it does seem like a good contender.
Or Ireland...? Well Bushmills and Cooley are already on the SMWS list - as far as I know they're the only two distilleries in Ireland making malt whisk(e)y - Cooley are responsible for Connemara and Tryconnell. I suppose it is possible the society might come up with a new code for one of these other whiskies produced at Cooley, but that wasn't the convention with Scotch distilleries that produce several different whiskies (e.g. Springbank) so it seems a bit unlikely.
Or Japan...? To date the SMWS has bottled from both of the Suntory distilleries (Yamazaki and Hakushu) and both of the Nikka distilleries (Yoichi and Miyagikyo). So that leaves the two Kirin distilleries (Fuji-Gotemba and Karuizawa) - which have produced some really good malts - but I suspect the question of whether the SMWS bottles these may be more to do with business relationships and the difficulties of importing / exporting rather than the quality of the product. Then there are a few Japanese distilleries which are independently owned, most notably Chichibu. Almost certainly too early for the SMWS to be interested in the new Chichibu distillery though, having only started distilling in early 2008 they won't be at that critical three year threshold until 2011 (although their "new born" spirits are really good).
What about something from a more far flung corner of the world? Perhaps Mackmyra, the Swedish malt whisky, or Amrut the Indian malt whisky...?
In the course of writing this article I've had some time to muse over this question, and I think on balance, my money is on Kilkerran. The SMWS appears to already have a good relationship with the owners of Springbank as they often bottle their casks, and a Campbeltown revivial will be close to the hearts of many SMWS members.
Anyway, we'll find out next Friday!
Comment 1
An 11 year old Hazleburn, an outturn of only 209 bottles from a Sherry cask. All sold out by early Friday
Posted by PL at 2009/05/03 11:05:38.
Comment 2
Hazelburn...? Now I'm really confused!
Isn't that one of the three malts produced at Springbank distillery? I was fairly sure when the society bottled the other Springbank malts (e.g. Longrow) they used the Springbank distillery code...?
I thought 126 was going to be Kilkerran - which although owned by the Mitchells (who own Springbank), is actually a different distillery - the former Glengyle.
Posted by John at 2009/05/16 10:42:38.
Comment 3
Actually, I stand corrected - regular Springbank is distillery code 27, and Longrow is distillery code 114... so I suppose it would make sense to have a separate code for Hazelburn...
Posted by John at 2009/05/16 10:51:33.
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