Scotch Malt Whisky Society Scotch Malt Whisky Society The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS), founded in Edinburgh in 1983, is a membership organisation which bottles and sells single cask, single malt whisky. It purchases individual casks from more than 125 malt whisky distilleries in Scotland and throughout the world, bottles them and retails directly to its members. It also runs three private members' rooms in the UK and in several international locations. The origins of the Society lie in Phillip "Pip" Hills' travels around the Scottish Highlands in the late 1970s, during which he sampled several whiskies drawn straight from the cask. Hills was
Amrut (whisky) distillery initially tried importing staves to save money, but abandoned the practice due to the smell of the barrels. It has also used its own rum and brandy barrels to finish its single malts. The Amrut Intermediate Sherry variant is aged in Sherry casks from Spain and Portugal. Amrut Distilleries has a cooperage on site to handle repairs. The duration of barrel-ageing for Amrut single malt whisky is much lower than that of Scotch whisky, due to India's hotter climate. The hot weather makes whisky mature faster in India than it does in Europe or the United States. Surinder Kumar,