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History In A Bottle Day 20: SMOS Imperial 29 Year KWM Cask 4561

Posted on December 20, 2022

This post is Bonus Content. It has information on one of the KWM Cask bottles that are featured on the back of our 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar box. You can find the blog post for the mini bottle for Day 20 of our 2022 KWM Whisky Calendar here.

by Andrew

We have been spoiled by our friends at Elixir Distillers. In the last 5 years, they have set us up with some amazing casks, well more than a dozen exclusive bottlings, four of which are featured on the back of this year’s Whisky Calendar box. We have bottled 4 casks of Imperial from Elixir Distillers, 22, 23, 24 and 29 years of age. This is especially impressive when you consider that the distillery is not just closed but demolished and replaced… it last produced spirit in 1998.

It had been at least a couple of years since we had last seen an Imperial when we received our first cask, a 1995 vintage 23-year-old in 2019. In the years leading up to that bottling I had personally developed a taste for the whisky, often matured in refill casks, it was creamy, elegant and tropical. I had been telling anyone who would listen, that Imperial might not be the next Port Ellen, but it was a closed distillery, and eventually, the supplies would dry up and the prices would rise. In the mid-2010s we were still seeing semiregular bottlings of Imperial from Signatory, Gordon & MacPhail and a few others, and then all of a sudden the supply dried up.

It seems Skuhinder Singh, owner of Elixir Distillers, saw the opportunity to corner the market on Imperial, buying up a large parcel of casks at a time when few others truly appreciated, their value. It's good to have friends who are willing to share some of their good fortunes with you, it’s even better when they let you put your name on the bottle too!

SMOS Imperial 29 Year KWM Cask 4561

Andrew's Tasting Note

Nose: heavenly… I want to crawl in to the glass; old leather sofas and polished mahogany bookshelves filled with dusty old books; this is antique-y, this is tropical, this is right in my wheelhouse; did I mention I want to crawl into the glass? candy-apple, kiwis and canned pineapple; vanilla bean, Manuka honey and soft floral tones.

Palate: yes… yes, yes, yes… this is what we’ve been waiting for since November!!! soft, silky, floral and full of bright, juicy tropical fruits; vanilla bean, Manuka honey and silky toasted oak; quince paste, candied apple and loads of other fruits: kiwi, pineapple, spiced baked apple and persimmons(first ever usage in one of my tasting notes, had to look up the spelling); waxy with soft leather and more polished wood; divine.

Finish: delicate, but long, and fruity it clings to the palate with lush velvety oils; the mouth waters while it awaits more, more, more… never enough!

Comment: sinful, decadent, sublime, and dangerously drinkable; easily the best Imperial I’ve ever had, and one of the best casks we’ve ever had the good fortune to attach our name to (nearly 100); we’ve been telling people for months that this whisky blows our last cask of Imperial out of the water, and it does that and then some… they also bottled it on my birthday in January, so belated happy birthday to me!

About Imperial Distillery - Written by Andrew

The Imperial Distillery was founded in 1897 by Thomas Mackenzie, who also owned nearby Dailuaine. It was named in honour of that year's Diamond Jubilee for Queen Victoria. This was the height of a major whisky boom, which today we would call a bubble. The distillery was enormous for its day and was topped with a giant crown made of cast iron on its maltings building. The following year Thomas Mackenzie merged his two distilleries with Talisker on the Isle of Skye.

The end of the 19th century's whisky bubble fueled by the global growth of Blended Scotch whisky burst in 1899. In the fallout, the Imperial Distillery was mothballed along with dozens of other Scottish distilleries. Many of these would never reopen, but Imperial was one of the lucky ones, eventually reopening nearly two decades later. In 1919 it was again in production as a part of a new consortium of blending firms known as Distillers Company Ltd., or DCL. In 1925, under continued industry consolidation, Imperial was placed under DCL's distilling arm, Scottish Malt Distillers or SMD. This would not be to Imperial's advantage, it was closed again, this time for 30 years.

In 1955, in the early days of a new boom in demand for Scotch Whisky, Imperial was once more reopened. A decade later another pair of stills were added, doubling production. Unfortunately, this boom as with the one in the late 1800s would also turn to bust. In 1985 the distillery was mothballed again and sold off to Allied Distillers in 1989. Under Allied, the distillery was run again after some refurbishment - this time from 1990 through 1998.

In 2005, Pernod Ricard bought the distillery property and put it under the control of Chivas Bros. It was fortuitous timing as the purchase happened just a few years before the start of yet another boom in demand for Scotch whisky. Unlike the previous booms and bubbles mentioned, this time the focus was more geared toward single malts instead of blends. But Pernod Ricard/Chivas Bros. never re-opened Imperial. Despite rumours of its reopening percolating for more a decade of the distillery's latest closure, in 2008 the distillery was put on the market to be sold as residential flats. A few months later it was withdrawn, and this is where the story gets interesting. With demand for malt surging Chivas Brothers looked at reopening the distillery, but it seems they had left the site rather poorly guarded since the last closure. Some entrepreneurial locals had stripped the buildings of every conceivable material they could sell for scrap. When Pernod/Chivas realized this, it was determined that it would cost more to rebuild and re-kit the distillery than it would be to build a new one.

Because of this, the eight years from 1990 to 1998 ended up being Imperial's last in operation. When all was said and done, Imperial Distillery was only in production for under half of its century-long existence. In 2013, the crowned distillery was demolished to make way for a brand-new distillery to be built on the same site. It is the ultra-modern and eco-friendly Dalmunach Distillery which replaced Imperial, with the first spirit running off the stills in 2015. We have yet to see the fruits of its labours be released in single malt form.

The thing about closed distilleries is that their remaining stocks are finite and constantly dwindling - both when another cask is bottled, as well as when the ageing whisky still in casks evaporates over time (known as the angel's share). As time marches on the whisky becomes rarer and rarer. Usually, they also become more and more expensive. Imperial closed more than a decade after the likes of Port Ellen and Brora, so it doesn't make sense to compare the price of Imperial to these legends. But its closure is contemporaneous to the likes of Littlemill (1996) and Rosebank (1993), yet thus far the whisky has not quite to attained its cultish status, let alone prices. This is curious, as few independent bottlers are bottling Imperial these days, and the whiskies they are bottling, they are stunning. Get 'em while you can, and while they remain affordable!

This entry was posted in Whisky, Whisky Calendars, KWM Whisky Calendar 2022, KWM Single Cask

 

 

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