The Society's Reserve Cask Selection No.2 Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky 1991

Video transcript

30 years in the making, we’re proud to release the first in a series of our Reserve Cask Selection malt whiskies.

This will be the first in a number of bottlings that we’re excited to release to members that really speak to our heritage.

I think they showcase something really special and interesting; we didn’t select them from thousands of casks, these are really representative of fully mature malt whiskies.

Through the 70s, 80s and 90s, we were bottling lots of sherry. The wonderful sherry we sourced from great bodegas in Jerez was bottled and sold to members immediately, but the barrels were not thrown away. Instead, we sent them to Scotland to be refilled with great malt whiskies.

We stopped bottling sherry in 1992 at The Wine Society, and that’s when we also stopped sending barrels, butts and hogsheads to Scotland to be filled.

I was amazed that these stocks of rare whiskies hadn’t been bottled separately before. I had all the barrels dipped, measured and sampled so that I could taste them and exclude anything that wasn’t really exciting.

We had them hand-bottled and hand-labelled. They’re also un chill-filtered and natural colour.

This first release in the series is a 1989 Highland single malt whisky. On the nose of this mature malt whisky there’s a classic sherry note: the honey, hazelnut and citrus that you expect from great-quality Highland sherry whiskies is clearly there. If you add a touch of water all these flavours are amplified, and some more floral, hay notes really come through.

It’s a very rich, concentrated and complex whisky.

I hope you take the opportunity to enjoy these rare malt whisky releases.

They speak to our heritage and history, and are unrepeatable.