Croftengea 12 Year Old 2012 SMWS Single Bourbon Barrel 122.73 Captivating And Enthralling Loch Lomond Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2025) 70cl
1 of 139 bottles produced from a single bourbon barrel
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
Looking at the comments from the Panel members, the aroma neat was hard to pin down: rubber and glue, polish and caramel, but also overripe pineapple, red apples, key lime pie and rosehip tea. On the palate, overripe bananas were being barbecued, as grilled pears were served with honey and chilli powder, while in the finish we found butterscotch and toffee. Following reduction, canapés of savoury choux buns filled with chervil and chives arrived, along with rosemary and thyme. To taste, the mild flavour of aniseed came from the chervil but with a sweet, fresh spearmint mixed in with cracked black pepper and sour apple hard candies, making this a captivating experience.
About Croftengea
A heavily peated malt spirit used as a blending component by Loch Lomond distillery, but also released briefly as a single cask single malt.
Croftengea is a single malt Scotch whisky – one of a large number of spirit types made at the highly versatile Loch Lomond distillery.
These spirits span various cut points, yeast types and peating levels, with Croftengea sitting at the heavily peated end of the spectrum – indeed the distillery says this is its most heavily peated whisky.
Like fellow single malts Glen Douglas and Craiglodge, the main role of the Croftengea spirit is to add complexity to Loch Lomond’s blends, although all three have had limited releases in their own name.
Since it opened in 1966, the Loch Lomond distillery at Alexandria in Dunbartonshire has evolved and expanded to encompass a variety of still types, including conventional pot stills, pot stills with rectifying plates in their necks (Lomond stills) and continuous stills to produce grain spirit.
The result is at least 11 different distillates, of which Croftengea is a heavily peated single malt primarily used as a blending component.
However, alongside sibling malts Glen Douglas and Craiglodge, Croftengea enjoyed a brief time in the spotlight during the mid-2000s as part of the Loch Lomond Distillery Select range of single cask releases.
Croftengea first surfaced in its own right in 2004, and a nine-year-old bottling (distilled in 1996) was launched in 2006. There are currently no plans for further releases.
59.5% ABV
70cl
