Eight Casks, One Room: SMWS × Southern California Whiskey Club
Hollywood, June 18th. Blu Jam Melrose at 7pm — a restaurant cleared out for the evening, Glencairns on every table, eight SMWS casks open and waiting. The Southern California Whiskey Club showed up ready to work.
This is one of my favorite kinds of event to host: a room full of people who actually want to learn, not just drink. SCWC members come with their own glasses and actual opinions. So we moved properly — blind first, reveal after, real conversation in between.
The arc was deliberate: lighter and elegant → fruity and tropical → sweet and spiced → savory and smoky. Eight drams across that arc, each one chosen to illustrate something specific. Here's what we poured.
The Lineup
9.282 — "Pay Attention" · Glen Grant · 19 Years · 54.3%
The SMWS Bottle of the Month for June — and it earns it. Glen Grant's 282nd cask from the Society, 19 years in a first-fill American oak barrel. The distillery uses unusually tall stills with purifiers that strip out heavier oils, producing clean, fragrant spirit. All that wood time adds custard and pastry depth without burying the orchard fruit.
Nose: Custard cream biscuits, pain aux raisins, almond pastries, white chocolate pistachio truffles. Fresh apples and juicy pears. Water opens cherry pie, chocolate drops, Seville orange curd. Palate: Smooth and sweet — lemon meringue, vanilla, toffee — with eucalyptus freshness underneath. Finish: Bright and lively. Fresh juice, apple, lemon, ginger. Closes like a daiquiri.
A 19-year malt that still has real lift in the finish. The room was paying attention.
19.87 — "Ripe" · Glen Garioch · 19 Years · 53.5%
Same cask type. Same age. Completely different whisky — because the spirit underneath is completely different. Glen Garioch (pronounced "Glen Geery") produces high-ester new-make: loads of banana and pineapple from fermentation that don't fade with age, they deepen. Nineteen years in first-fill bourbon barrel and you get something that reads more like Caribbean rum than classic Highland Scotch.
Nose: Green grass and pine needles. Ripe banana, pineapple, tinned peaches. Dates and figs in a cake. Water: blackcurrant, cherry liqueur, coconut. Palate: Banana and pineapple esters, cinnamon, coriander, oak. Oily and viscous. Juniper, toasted pine nuts, white pepper over melon. Finish: Rum and calvados. Oak-aged cider on the way out.
The most expensive dram of the evening at $240. The room agreed it earned it.
122.66 — "Tropical Treat" · Croftengea · 10 Years · 60.7% (Fog City Social Exclusive)
The highest ABV of the evening — water is not optional here. This is the Fog City Social exclusive cask. Croftengea is Loch Lomond's unpeated expression, made at a distillery that runs multiple still types under one roof. The maturation story is in two acts: 7 years in ex-bourbon, then 3 years in a refill hogshead that had been heavily toasted and medium charred. Toast caramelizes wood sugars. Char builds an activated carbon layer. On an already tropical spirit, the result is something unexpected.
Nose: Toasted bagels, grilled sausages, baconnaise, rapeseed oil. Water: dark chocolate, spun sugar, dried pineapple. Palate: Tutti frutti ice cream with a twist of oregano. Water: peach frosting on vanilla cupcakes, white and milk chocolate. Finish: Sweet, tropical, and warming — the toast and char linger without aggression.
Ten years old and doesn't feel it. Not for a moment.
Heresy Batch 30 — "Stroop it Up!" · Speyside Blend · 11 Years · 50%
SMWS makes single casks. Calling a blended release "Heresy" is self-aware, and earned. Batch 30 brings together multiple Speyside malts finished in first-fill PX butts seasoned for 13 months at Tonelería Juan Pino in Jerez, Spain. PX — Pedro Ximénez — is the sweetest sherry style, made from sun-dried concentrated grapes. At 50% it's the most approachable pour of the evening. Deliberately.
Nose: Orange muscat wine, apricots, oranges, pears. Toasted almonds on brioche. Palate: Spicy fruit, hot mulled white wine — orange juice, star anise, honey, cinnamon. Water: amaretto-infused mince pies, sweet and perfectly balanced. Finish: Pumpkin-spiced iced coffee with cream on a stroopwafel — the Dutch caramel wafer that gave this its name.
A liquid dessert with real craft behind it. The room was surprised it was a blend.
48.176 — "Paint to Sample" · Balmenach · 14 Years · 57.4%
Balmenach is the Speyside nobody talks about — its production mostly goes into Dewar's and other blends. The spirit is robust and meaty, nothing like the delicate florals of Glen Grant. Here it gets an STR finish: Shaved, Toasted, Re-charred — plus new toasted heads on a 225L barrique. Three years of freshly worked wood after 11 years building a base.
Nose: Hearty Scotch broth with smoked bacon. Water: a mountain bothy, venison searing in a cast-iron pan. Palate: Raisins, caramel, maple syrup — with well-fried bacon on a pancake stack underneath. Finish: Venison steak with blueberry sauce and red wine jus. Structure without overwhelm.
The room's most divisive dram. Which means it was interesting.
53.488 — "Giant Slayer" · Caol Ila · 13 Years · 56.9%
Moving to Islay. Caol Ila is the largest distillery on the island — the backbone of Johnnie Walker — bottled here as a single cask after 10 years building a maritime, peaty base, then 3 years in a first-fill American oak Oloroso hogshead. Oloroso is dry and dark: raisins, figs, balsamic, walnuts. The tension between Islay peat and Oloroso dark fruit is one of the great partnerships in whisky.
Nose: Creamy sweet peat smoke, salty sherry. Balsamic glaze, bacon jam. Water: kippers, iodine, camphor, herbal ointments. Palate: Smouldering hardwoods, resinous fir, natural tar, pickled walnuts, smoked game. Charmingly old-school. Finish: Salted liquorice and unlit cigars.
The tasting panel called it "old-school." That's exactly right.
10.285 — "Hefty Peat Smoke!" · Bunnahabhain · 11 Years · 52.3% (St. Andrew's Day 2025 Exclusive)
Second Islay — same two-act structure, but PX instead of Oloroso. That changes everything. PX is dark and sweet where Oloroso is dry and savory. On big peat smoke, PX rounds the edges without softening the core. The SMWS tasting panel's first reaction: "Holy smoke! Pure filth! Proper hefty peat!" — which in Society circles is a standing ovation.
Nose: Pure, unapologetic peat smoke. Standing in a barley field as the kiln fires. Palate: Dark caramel and chocolate-coated brazil nuts balancing the smoke perfectly. Water: salty sea water, prawns in smoky marie rose sauce, hot-smoked salmon. Finish: Salty oysters and smoked-clam-tomato juice. Maritime and long.
Younger than the Caol Ila. Doesn't feel it.
78.86 — "Bobbing for Baked Goods" · Ben Nevis · 10 Years · 58.4% (US Exclusive Fall 2025)
The closer. Ben Nevis is at the foot of Britain's highest mountain in Fort William — big, oily, muscular spirit. The cask manager split its life exactly in half: 5 years American oak, then 5 years first-fill Spanish oak Oloroso. Spanish oak extracts more aggressively than American oak — darker dried fruit, heavier tannin, more clove and spice. Starting that transfer at five years old on a young, robust spirit was an aggressive call. It paid off.
Nose: Apples, dark sherry, treacle. Autumnal and generous — a bear hug of a nose. Palate: Dark dried fruit, rich oak tannins, warming spice. Full and deeply satisfying. Finish: Dried fruit, treacle, oak spice. Long and fortifying. The right way to close eight drams.
Eight casks. A room that left knowing considerably more about cask influence than they walked in with. That's the goal.
Thank you to the Southern California Whiskey Club for the invite, to Blu Jam for hosting, and to Kamil Majer for making the evening happen.
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