Longmorn 11 Year Old 1978 SMWS Single Ex-Bourbon Hogshead Cask 7.5  Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (1990) 70cl

1 of 252 bottles drawn from a single bourbon cask

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society was founded in Edinburgh in 1983 by Phillip 'Pip' Hills who, while travelling around Scotland in the 1970s, fell in love with whiskies drawn straight from the cask. After he expanded his syndicate the Society was purchased by Glenmorangie PLC in 2004. In 2015, the Society was sold back to private investors. In June 2021, the private owners floated the holding company The Artisanal Spirits Company plc on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.

It has a unique code system where the first number refers to the distillery and the second refers to the cask from which the bottle comes. SMWS also offers the largest range of distilleries of any independent bottler. These curiously named drams really do have something for every whisky lover!

About Longmorn

Longmorn has quietly provided a sweet and deeply fruity component to a multiplicity of blends since its founding. Its ferments are long, the distillation takes place in eight thick-necked stills, giving a make which is weighty enough to age well in both ex-Sherry and ex-Bourbon

Longmorn has been available as a single malt since the launch of a 15-year-old in 1993, a bottling which sported a slightly fantastical label showing the distillery nestled in the midst of rugged peaks – it’s on the flatlands near Elgin.

This was replaced by an extravagantly packaged 16-year-old in 2007, but the needs of blenders have meant that, even with increased production, the vast bulk of Longmorn is ring-fenced, with a single-cask offering part of Chivas Brothers’ Cask Strength series. It is, thankfully, a regular sight on independent bottlers’ lists and, deservedly, has built up a cult following, particularly in Japan.

Longmorn was built by one of the 19th century’s most interesting whisky entrepreneurs, John Duff. He was born in Aberchirder, worked at GlenDronach, and after designing nearby Glenlossie in 1876, headed to South Africa to try and start a whisky industry there. He failed (as did most, until very recently) and headed to the US to try his hand there. Knocked back once more he returned home and, undeterred, built Longmorn in 1893. Five years after he built another plant next door – Benriach.

It was not an ideal time to build two new plants and in 1899 he was forced to sell to James Grant. Although Duff’s business was not sound, his whisky was and by the start of the 20th century Longmorn was a prize malt, used in a variety of blends including VAT 69 and Dewar’s. In 1920, the young Masataka Taketsuru, one of the fathers of Japanese whisky and founder of Nikka, spent a short period working in the distillery. The stills at Nikka’s two distilleries are said to be modelled on Longmorn’s.

In 1970, the Grant family and blender Hill Thompson (which had a long relationship with Longmorn) merged with The Glenlivet & Glen Grant Distilleries Ltd to create The Glenlivet Distilleries Ltd. This was bought by Seagram in 1977 and (minus Glen Grant) is now part of Chivas Brothers.

56% ABV

70cl