Scotch Malt Whisky Society, January 2025 Outturn

February 3, 2025

Another SMWS whisky tasting event (once again at Birch Road, Lincoln Park). From a first glance, not that many sherry casks (taking a guess, looking at the colors).

The tasting process is a pretty lose one. But if you look at the sheet on the left, the group steps through the drams one at a time… and we try to guess certain things like age, cask type, flavor profile, and distillery.

For the age range, it’s a standard/pre-set range (3-7 years, 8-12 years, 13-17 years, 18-22 years, 23+ years).

The cask types are a standard list (ex-Bourbon, Ex-Sherry, or Other – with an additiona line listing 1st fill, second fill, or refill). But there’s usually something unexpected with each tasting. Oftentimes, there’s a double maturation process (X years in an ex-bourbon, another Y years in an ex-sherry). Sometimes there are shorter second cask times (known as “finishes”, where a whisky might go into a secondary cask for a range of 6 months – 2 years). There’s also tons of other cask types (rum, port, madeira, barrique).

For flavor profiles, the SMWS has their own set of definitions/colors. I don’t really think of these as canon, but they’re not bad for general classification.

The distillery list is pre-selected list by the Society. What makes this fun is that these bottles are always tricky – while the casks themselves may come from a set distillery, what we end up tasting may be wildly different from the flavor and profile we expect from the originating distillery. I think this is what makes independent bottlers so interesting/fun – while you might know the distillery you’re tasting, what you’re actually tasting may be a commplete surprise.

Usually, it’s hit or miss with me (the general joke is that everyone usually gets everything wrong). But I think it was the third dram that I guessed a really high age, and a 1st fill ex-bourbon cask. The whisky was incredibly flavorful, but also really calm and smooth. Younger whiskies tend to be bright and hot, a lot of alcohol fumes.

Liz has a good palette, as do our friends Max and Lauren. But for the third dram, I got many things correct/close, and it felt like the product of experience more than luck. And while there was luck, it felt nice to land closer to the mark.

As we arrived and put our jackets away, we walked in with Kramer and Mark (son and father). We had seen one another at a few prior tastings (the Balvenie tasting, as well as some prior Society events). We ended up sitting together and hung out as we went through the drams (Lauren came in a little late, and pulled up a chair to join us as well).

Fun bit of trivia: Mark is from Indianapolis, and his wife lived near where I grew up. He went to North Central High School, and was just ahead of me (he was a Senior in 1988, and I probably just showed up as a Freshman that year). He recognized Greenbriar, near 86th and Ditch, and there was a sparkle of recognition when I mentioned my parents’ old restaurant (the Golden Dragon). Small, small world.

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