T8KE x The Scotch Malt Whisky Society: Enter The Vaults 
 

In August I hopped on a plane with a crazy idea, bound for Scotland. Edinburgh, to be precise. August is a wild time to be in Edinburgh as it’s Fringe Festival. Or so the hotel concierge told me when I rolled up to the hotel. I had wondered why flights and hotels were more expensive than I anticipated. She looked at me like a fool for not knowing. But, this idea had come about a long time ago and developed slowly until one day it got a fast-tracked approval and I was shopping for flights. 

“If you’re not here for the Fringe Festival, you must be here to see Oasis?” she asked me. This was getting more awkward – I didn’t know that Oasis was playing in Scotland the night of my arrival either. When I told her that no, I didn’t realize Oasis was playing in the city that evening, she was frank, looking at me bewildered I’d brave Edinburg during a time the city had swelled to 2x its normal population for a festival and also Oasis: “Well, why are ya here?” 

Great question, lady. I was here to buy some Scotch. 

I’ve long admired the Scotch Malt Whisky Society – a longstanding cooperative that buys single casks of scotch, bottles them at cask strength with no coloring or filtering, and releases them to their members through their membership and through their bars and clubs across the globe. They own hundreds of barrels if not thousands and oversee the maturation, finishing, bottling and more. It’s incredible. The only Scotch I’ve ever given a 10/10 was none other than a Society bottling some years ago: SMWS 26.105 “Bumblebees By The Sea”. A bottling that would go on to net, several more, 10 out of 10’s.

Their mantra overlaps nearly perfectly if we were talking venn diagrams. On a pie chart of my favorite bars, or on a bar chart of my favorite pies, they’d rank right at the top in terms of curation over in Scotland and their head of innovation and curation was a man I’d long wanted to spend some time with. 

I checked in, freshened up and walked the city for a good couple hours to smite the jet lag I knew was coming. The next day, I’d head to The Vaults to meet Euan Campbell to launch something so wild and crazy it might just work. 

Edinburgh is a lovely city. The people are kind and the architecture is nuts. This wasn’t my hotel, for the record, before anyone gets any ideas. I strolled and took meetings from my phone while getting my bearings and getting settled. The weather was about 80 degrees. Folks acted as if the heat of Hades was upon us all. It was 102 when I left Washington DC, so I was enjoying what felt like some relief. I strolled the city, spent some time at a WeWork (they’re still around?) and enjoyed a Guiness or two alongside festival goers and took the city in while I tried to get ahead for the next day.

The next morning I took a train ride (Europe has amazing mass transit) up to Leith to meet Euan Campbell at SMWS flagship location: The Vaults. 

The Vaults have been around for hundreds of years, built and rebuilt over the passage of time and its home to SMWS and their members bar and restaurant as well as their tasting rooms for members and all of the facilities to support their program. I met Euan as I arrived and we got right to it. 

Euan is a soft spoken but witty and insightful genius of a Scotsman and his knowledge of Scotch goes well beyond what I could ever hope to know. I enjoyed both his company and his experience as we got tasting and had ourselves a day. One thing I lament is that when I travel, I’m typically the photographer, which I love. I love to bring people as close to the whiskey as I can through the pictures and stories I capture while I trot about but that usually means it’s rare that I make a photo. I’m not really a photogenic guy so it’s not typically a problem anyways, but they had a fine fellow who knew his way around a camera in attendance so the imagery from this selection(s) – wink – is especially vivid. 

We had a common dream, to return to a single cask, cask strength, Scotch whiskey release for the program here and I was thrilled to be making that selection from their deep cellars of stocks they’ve been acquiring for decades and decades. We’d start off with a table of samples to see if we couldn’t find a little lightning to bottle. 

SMWS uses a coded system which I have consistently found brilliant. They can’t tell you which distillery a release is from but there’s a well understood coding system to tie distilleries to numbers and therefore we’re able to achieve the level of detail that I love. For instance, that 26.105 I loved and gave a 10/10 was the 105th bottling from Distillery #26 which happens to be Clynelish. The bottle shares the age, the proof, the cask type, a second cask type if there’s a finish and the number of bottles and more. It’s a brilliantly clear system that’s easy to find and sort through. And each cask has a fun, fanciful name for flair because that sort of thing is easier to remember than purely just numbers. 

We tasted through a number of whiskeys and it was no easy task. After some hours, I’d come to settle on our first selection – a gorgeous, 2007 vintage Craigellachie worm tubbed beauty. It is the first of 4 casks we’ll be doing for the program. This cask shone with fresh tropical fruits, nutty sherry, gorgeous honeys and sweet oak, layered pastries and a hint of waxed fruits, toffee, a hint of tobacco and gorgeous, rich, nutty sherry character. Unpeated, balanced, elegant.

It’ll be called “Properly Nutty” an 18 year old age stated single cask that matured initially in ex-bourbon casks before finishing for several years in a refill sherry cask. And, as all things end up when I come to town and cause trouble, the label will be customized as well.  

As one is to do after a day drinking scotch with an idol, I snuck around, tried a few more things, and came up with a few new ideas.

There’s one catch with SMWS – you have to be a member to purchase bottlings. And, for years, I’ve wanted to find a way to offer a sampling of various scotches so folks can get their bearings and learn more about scotch without breaking the bank or passing/purchasing a release and regretting it later. 

So, as these things typically do, our teams came together. The Society bottles several casks each month for their members. They have bars and affiliations in Chicago, New York, Washington DC and full on bar locations in London, Scotland and beyond. We came up with an idea that excites me and pushes our program forward in ways I’ve wanted to do for years. 

Typically, an annual membership to The Society is $99. They don’t historically bottle small formats. So, for our group, we were able to bottle and make avaialble a tasting kit that will also come with a complimentary membership to the program, which will grant access to the casks I’ve selected, as well as all of their casks, events, bars and clubs and other goings on that make the society special.

Typically the membership is $99, today I’m thrilled to release the tasting kit and membership for $99, all in, which will allow each of you the full rights and privilege of a Society member, and first dibs on our releases from my selections in Scotland (there are two!) with two more to follow. Next year, I am also in planning to put together a trip to Scotland for our program folks who want to tag along, and experience the Vaults, a selection, and some Scottish distilleries in person. 

There are three Society single casks in the kit, and the kit is a cornucopia of detail – each cask is a single cask, cask strength, bottling from a cask the Society has bottled, and there are two unpeated and one peated release. They are well aged and the details are below: this is not our casks, it’s an introduction to how Society does their bottlings, their packaging, their attention to detail and it will kick off your membership for the year so you can enjoy access to all 4 casks I’ve chosen for our program. In the kit is: 

• Society Cask 63.109 – “Oak Planck’s Constant” – A gorgeous Speysider (Glentauchers) that’s 20 years old, aged in a 1st Fill bourbon cask and bottled at 60% ABV – a tropical fruit salad with honey, spices and gorgeous apple bake. 
• Society Cask 53.469 “The Ultimate Nuance” – A peppy Islay – peated Caol Ila that’s 10 years old, aged entirely in a refill ex-bourbon hogshead and bottled at 57% ABV that’s loaded with lemon curd, smoked salt, vanilla bean and lovely cedar and oak and a maritime peatiness. 
• Society Cask 68.124 “Wild Campfire” – A bold and composed Highland that was aged entirely in an ex-PX cask, this Blair Athol is 16 years old, and bottled at 56.2% ABV with lovely toffee, nutty sherry and ginger, gorgeous coffee and figs with a pleasant stewed fruit underbelly. 

If you loved the original Laphroaig we did, or joined in the Scotch adventures I’ve brought this group along for with Transatlanticism, this is a great way to try three amazing casks and then my selections easily. If you are Scotch curious, there’s no better way to get acquainted and try three unique but all quintessentially scotch producers and join the Society to come along for the ride. 

Purchasing the kit will induct you into the Society with full privileges and with no additional membership fee. You can also just buy a membership for $99, but that’d be silly. Get you some scotch to taste while more info rolls out about each of our casks for the next year. 

Euan and I can’t wait for you to join us, and welcome to The Scotch Malt Whisky Society to experience a new frontier of Scotch for our program that’s innovative, quality-first and as hands on as it gets. We’ll talk more about my first release, 44.196 “Properly Nutty” in a members email as bottling occurs. 

This will release widely on Monday as well, capped at 200 members. First 200 in get the seats. Let’s have a blast.