Cameronbridge 36 Year Old 1979 SMWS Single Cask G4.9 A Blast From The Past 70cl
1 of 126 bottles produced
A single grain whisky from the Cameronbridge distillery, then matured for 36 years in a refill ex-Bourbon Hogshead. This was then bottled by the Scotch Whisky Society at natural cask strength from a single cask.
Tasting Notes
Nose : neat, deep-filled Bramley apple pie, oven-roasted corn on the cob and new waxed jackets. But then there was also a nostalgic blast from the past for some as they were reminded of opening a box with ‘Super 8’ 8 mm spools (in the year this whisky was distilled Roger Moore was saving the world as 007 in ‘Moonraker’).
Palate : big sweetness of sugar cane juice and big wood spiciness, Vetiver and sandalwood. Water added the aromas and flavours of German Semolina pudding with apple sauce and cinnamon as well as chocolate nut halva.
About Cameronbridge
Diageo's wholly-owned grain plant not only provides the backbone of many of the company's blends, it produces the liquid for the Cameron Brig and Haig Club single grain whiskies.
Cameronbridge is the largest grain distillery in Europe. It can also lay claim to be the oldest. Its story also involves two of the most remarkable – and strangely overlooked – distilling dynasties in whisky, the Haig and Stein families.
The first record of a Haig making whisky was in 1655, when Robert Haig was hauled up in front of the church elders for daring to distil on the Sabbath. In 1751 his great-great-grandson John married Margaret Stein whose family were already making whisky at their distilleries in Kilbagie and Kennetpans.
Four of their sons became distillers, opening their own plants in central Scotland and Ireland. The youngest, William, founded Kincaple and Seggie in Fife and it was his eldest son, John, who founded Cameronbridge in 1824.
It was a time of rapid growth in production and also in new methods of making whisky. The Lowland distillers had long been large-scale producers, but had been limited by technology and law to producing their whisky from pot stills. Things were changing however, and in 1829 John installed the patent still which his cousin Robert Stein had invented and was operating at his own Kilbagie distillery. One of the Stein stills was used until 1929.
Soon after, Irish engineer Aeneas Coffey had improved Stein’s design with his own patent still. John Haig immediately installed one of them as well. When Alfred Barnard visited in the 1880s, two Stein, two Coffey and a pot still (to make ‘pot still Irish’) were operational. Though considerably larger in scale, today the same Coffey design is still used at Cameronbridge.
In 1865 John joined in an alliance with eight other grain distillers and in 1877 this was formalised into the Distillers Company Limited [DCL]. Haig joined with the owners of Port Dundas, Carsebridge, Glenochil, Cambus, and Kirkliston to control 75% of Scotland’s grain capacity. This not only allowed the new firm a dominant – eventually monopoly – position in supply, but the ability to fix prices. DCL would, in time and after many mergers, evolve into Diageo.
Cameronbridge remained as the powerhouse of DCL’s grain division and, with the closure of Port Dundas in 2010, is now Diageo’s sole wholly-owned grain plant and from 1998, production of Gordon’s and Tanqueray gins and Smirnoff vodka has also been based here. It was expanded further as part of a £40m investment in 2007.
It was unusual insofar as for many years it was the only one of the grain distilleries to have its own brand – Cameron Brig. Although other distilleries would try their hand at this, only Cameron Brig survived. In 2014, the distillery was given greater prominence as the provider of the whisky for the David Beckham/Diageo single grain brand Haig Club.
About SMWS
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) was founded in 1983 by a group of friends lead by tax accountant Phillip ‘Pip’ Hills as a private members club. The concept behind the society was to source casks from all over Scotland which would then be bottled and made available exclusively to its members. Perhaps the most famous feature of these bottles are the unique codes. Each distillery is represented by a different number and the following digits indicate that particular release. That same year, the SMWS set up its first location in Leith’s Vault buildings in Edinburgh where it still stands today.
47.6% ABV
70cl
