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
Japanese whisky some time it was believed by many that whisky made in the Scottish style, but not produced in Scotland, could not possibly measure up to the standards of the traditional Scotch whisky distilleries. Before 2000, the market for Japanese whiskies was almost entirely domestic, though this changed in 2001 when Nikka's 10-year Yoichi single malt won "Best of the Best" at "Whisky Magazine"s awards. In the blind tasting organized by "Whisky Magazine" in 2003, the results of which are published in WM #30, the winners of the category "Japanese Whiskies" were: In the main ranking (covering all categories of whisky)