Do you have a bottle or two of a Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottling, have you ever wondered what the numbers mean? I will try and explain…

The first number is the unique distillery number. and the second number refers to the cask ie, the 6th cask from that distillery they have bottled. So…. if I had a 27.6, I would have a bottle from the 6th cask bottled from Springbank.

Why don’t SMWS tell us what distillery the bottle is from?  read below to find out….

The SMWS are more about flavours and character than brands and distilleries. The reason why they don’t identify the distillery is because it probably won’t taste anything like what you would expect. That’s the nature of the single cask. The SMWS also hope it encourages their members to try something they may never have tried before.

You will notice however that there are always clues within each of the tasting notes as to the origin of the Whisky…

For reference below you’ll see our list of what the first number corresponds to (note: this list did not originate from the SMWS):

I hope all those numbers are correct, ;-)…. Do you have a favorite bottling? we would love to know.

Nicola

Related Whisky Boy Posts:

1. Q&A - Olaf Meier of SMWS - Part 1
2. Bowmore Whisky - A Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) Single Malt Scotch Whisky from a Single Cask
3. Whisky Boys, Back to School - Week 5
4. Scotch Malt Whisky Society – Promo Offer for Valentine’s Day
5. Bourbon Whiskey is coming to the Whisky Boys