Arran 16 Year Old 1999 SMWS Single Bourbon Cask 121.90 Spiced Pear Planter’s Punch Island Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2016) 70cl
1 of 258 bottles produced 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!
The SMWS are one of the Britain's most revered independent bottlers with a worldwide network of partner bars with one mission of getting as much whisky at natural cask strength without water to different nations including USA, Canada, Switzerland, UK, Austria, Germany and many others.
TASTING NOTES
Attractive deep woody notes were combined with the spicy sweetness of pumpkin cheesecake with toasted coconut sprinkled on top and a caramel-Bourbon sauce and, right at the end, the fruitiness of apple sponge pudding served with custard. To taste neat, that fruitiness turned into pear cider and well-aged Calvados. Combine this with cinnamon dusted espresso beans and liquorice allsorts and we had a tingling tongue experience. With a drop of water attractive fruity aromas of ripe pears and berry and mascarpone summer pudding and on the taste, a spiced pear planter’s punch made us all think of a carefree Sunday sunny afternoon.
Nose: Peach fuzz. Asian pears. Apricot jam. Marmalade. Slightly spicy sultanas, like if you’d pick them out of a cinnamon bun. Gooseberries. Meat in a stone fruit sauce. Sawdust. Granadilla. With water some of the fruit notes become more pronounced, a lot more of the Arran character is present and an almost lactic caramel note develops.
Palate: Liquid apricot skin. Light wood oils, cedar and sandalwood. Cinnamon, nutmeg. Woody vanilla. Generic tropical fruit flavouring. With water the spices are more intense and the fruits more juicy.
Finish: Long. Bitter wood. Stone fruits. Cinnamon. Sandalwood. Sawdust.
About Arran
The Isle of Arran has played host to many distilleries, mostly illicit and the last legal distillery closed in 1835. What is surprising is that it took until 1995 for a still to run again as the Arran distillery at Lochranza came online. Financed mostly by Harold Currie who had retired from Chivas, the team also sought investment from 2000 investors who gave up £450 for a share of future whiskies. Many of whom turned up for the official opening, including a descendent of the last person to be killed on Arran for distilling illegally. Since the initial days, Arran distillery has prospered thanks to an array of cask types and special editions. The whisky, in time, has come of age and growing demand meant an expansion in 2017, with a new pair of stills. Things went even further in 2019 when a second distillery (Lagg) was established at the southern end of Arran.
52.8% ABV
70cl
