Follow Us:

Blog

Kensington Wine Market's 2023 Whisky Calendar UBER EDITION Day 25 - SMWS 76.151 - Cloves studded in honey-glazed ham

Posted on June 16, 2024

by Evan

Here we are on Door and Day number 25 in the 2023 KWM UBER Whisky Calendar! This is the last dram we get to enjoy together from the now torn-apart Whisky Calendar box. It has been a lot of fun to write these posts up and do the tasting notes for this and the other 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar. All total, this makes 50 blog posts with 50 tasting notes over the past 25 days, and about 36,000 words in total between the two. Some of those words even made sense when I managed to combine them correctly in the form of a sentence! I think.

Here is my personal top 5 list from the 2023 KWM UBER Whisky Calendar:

5 - SMWS 42.73 Quiet Confidence from Day 1

4 - Glenfarclas Family Cask 1990 S22 from Day 9

3 - Port Askaig 28 Yr Islay Single Malt from Day 5

2 - Boutique-y Millstone 25 Year from Day 4

1 - Whisky Trail Silhouette Carsebridge 1973 from Day 16

I could easily make a long list of honourable mentions if I went further into detail on the UBER Edition of the KWM Whisky Calendar. For me, the UBER Edition was stuffed with bottles I had never tasted before, with a few drams that I was very happy to revisit along the way. Hopefully, most of these drams were new for you as well, and it has allowed you to discover some new favourite styles or distilleries to keep an eye out for. I would love to hear what your own personal favourites are, and even which ones didn’t hold up to scrutiny if you want to share that! Please let me know in person or via email. I always enjoy talking about whisky!

Now, let's take a look at the final dram in the 2023 KWM UBER Whisky Calendar: Your bottle should read:

SMWS 76.151 - Cloves studded in honey-glazed ham – 30 Year Old

What does the 76.151 mean? Is this a mystery malt? We have had a one of those in the 2023 KWM UBER Whisky Calendar – including the Boutique-y 24 Year Old Bourbon from Day 18 (which just missed my top 5 in the calendar) and back on Day Five with the Port Askaig 28-Year-Old. However, the numbers on an SMWS bottle do refer to which distillery it comes from, if you know the codification of it.

First comes the 76. That means that this bottle comes from the 76th Distillery that the SMWS ever bottled. The .151 means that it is the 151st cask bottled by the SMWS from Distillery 76.

Both the Distillery Numbers and Cask Numbers are chronological, and reference the order in which they first appeared in an SMWS bottle in. This means that the first Distillery bottled is still referred to as 1.XXX, the second Distillery ever bottled is still referred to as 2.XXX, and so on down the line. For the SMWS, Distillery 1 is Glenfarclas, Distillery 2 is Glenlivet, Distillery 3 is Bowmore, and so on. Distillery 76, which is what the bottle we will taste today is from, is Mortlach.

To summarize: 76.151 is the 151st cask from Mortlach Distillery that has been bottled by the SMWS. Make sense?

I covered a bit about Mortlach Distillery in the 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar on Day 14 with the G&M Distillery Label Mortlach 15-Year-Old. Feel free to check out that post if you want more information on it.

Here is some more information on the Scotch Malt Whisky Society for those who aren’t familiar with it:

About the Scotch Malt Whisky Society

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is the world's largest whisky club, and also an independent bottler. As a club, it has close to 30,000 members all over the world, and branches in close to 20 different countries. It bottles as broad a range of single cask, single malt Scotch whiskies as any other firm - if not more - and it doesn't stop there. It has also bottled Japanese whiskies, Bourbon, American Rye Whiskey, Canadian Single Malt Whisky, Scottish Grain whisky, Cognac, Armagnac, Rum, and Gin. Whether it is a whisky or another spirit, the Society always bottles the spirit from a single cask, straight from the cask, Unfiltered. Undiluted. Unrivalled.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society was officially founded back in 1983. Membership to the SMWS is easy and gives you exclusive access to the widest selection of single cask single malt whiskies anywhere in the world. The Canada Chapter of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society celebrated its 10th birthday in October of 2021. Only Scotch Malt Whisky Society members can buy our exclusive single cask single malt whiskies, but anyone can purchase a sample kit for one of the monthly Outturn Tastings we hold online. We're confident once you've had a taste you will want to join the club. For more information on the SMWS and SMWS Canada, you can visit their web page at www.smws.ca.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society does not put the name of the distillery directly on the bottle or in the tasting notes. Instead, everything is codified. That brings us to the bottle for today.

SMWS 76.151 - Cloves studded in honey-glazed ham - 57.2%

Scotch Malt Whisky Society Tasting Note

“An irresistible concoction of coffee and cloves pulled us towards beef jerky smoked with pencil shavings and served with maple syrup on bacon. A prickly palate of peppercorns and pickles danced with glee to the sound of black pudding sizzling in whirling clouds of wood smoke. A drop of water unleashed a compelling accumulation of chamomile, caramel and cooling camphor that skilfully merged with the heavyweight hues of molasses, prunes and almond-coated jamaica cake.

Then cloves and saffron adorned poached pears alongside oloroso sherry trifle while we used burnt sticks to trickle rich honey over oily iberico ham. After spending 26 years in an ex-bourbon hogshead this was transferred to a 1st fill Spanish oak oloroso hogshead for the remainder of its maturation.”

Evan’s Tasting Note

Nose: Big, rich and savoury with notes of exactly what it says on the bottle: ham and cloves. Maple smoked ham specifically for me, plus Dates, dark chocolate, peppercorn, au jus from a beef dip, brown sugar and molasses, old Armagnac, caramel popcorn, and much more.

Palate: More dates, cloves, and maple syrup, black tea, nutmeg, chocolate-coated espresso beans, almonds, peanuts, candied orange peel, caramel popcorn again, dried cranberries and cherries, and a candied apple tossed in just for fun.

Finish: Lengthy with plenty of warming cinnamon and nutmeg notes plus concentrated dried fruits aplenty.

Comment: A nicely warming dram to use as a nightcap, and to cap off a whisky calendar!

Cheers,
Evan
evan@kensingtonwinemarket.com
Facebook & Instagram: @sagelikefool

Thank you for dramming along with me for the past 25 days! We at KWM hope that you had fun exploring through this 25 days of dram fine whisky and found some new favourite bottles and styles along the way! We wish you a happy and safe holiday - hopefully, spent with your friends and loved ones and a good whisky or three along the way!

You can find all blog posts for the UBER EDITION of Kensington Wine Market’s 2023 Whisky Calendar Here

This entry was posted in Whisky, Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Whisky Calendars, Independent Bottler, KWM Whisky Calendar 2023 UBER EDITION

 

 

Recent Posts
Archives

Categories