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
Scotch Whisky Experience fulfilling various roles afterwards, including a catering school, an urban studies centre and a general store.. In July 1987, 19 individual Scotch Whisky companies jointly invested £2m to create The Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre – a permanent attraction based on the history and development of Scotch Whisky. The new attraction opened on 5 May 1988, changing its name to The Scotch Whisky Experience in 2006. In 2008, the attraction became home to the World’s Largest Collection of Scotch Whisky, featuring 3,384 bottles. The collection had been built up over 35 years by Brazilian whisky enthusiast Claive Vidiz, who believed it