Scotch Malt Whisky Society - any thoughts to share?

[Drame Blanche]

I finally decided to join the SMWS. For the money of a good 18 years old bottle I get access to their wide range of single casks experiments, the type of weirdness that I very much like to explore in my dramming every now and then (and 5 samples that hopefully will be good!).

Springroses and candyfloss, blood orange sorbet, banana flambée… I guess some of you might cringe at the thought, but as much as I do enjoy my Balvenie and my Lagavulin (and Glenfiddich, shhh!), I like to see what “challenging the status quo” means in whisky terms.

Has any of you tried their whiskies? Any thoughts?

[Alexppp]

I don't know, having never been a member to me it sounds like an independent bottler masquerading as a members' club. Because you still pay on top of the membership to try stuff, don't you?

[Bookie]

If you are able to regularly visit one of the SMWS venues than membership is good value, I was a member a while back to try it out, the whiskies varied in quality as you would expect but I did have some good stuff from them but I wasn't able to visit the SMWS venues where you can try before you buy, if I was able to do that I may have kept on my membership.

[jcarrick]

I have also been a member in the past and found some gems amongst the SMWS bottlings. I agree with Bookie, being able to visit a SMWS venue and trying the whiskies before you buy a full bottle is a huge advantage, if you are able to do so but if you are not most of their entertaining tasting notes are usually pretty spot on.

[Drame Blanche]

@Alex - it's undeniably a bottler masquerading as (or one might say "adding on top of it") a members' club, but I have no problem with that, as long as they pour me good whisky.

Yes, most events are paid, I can see their tastings are like £35 on average and some offer bottomless dram'ing, I can't complain with that. Clearly it's the quality of the whisky that makes or breaks it.

@Bookie / jcarrick - totally, I'm the only dude in my circle of friends who's into the juice of the barley, I'll also use these tastings as an occasion to meet fellow maltmates and hopefully make my visits be reasonably regular

And thanks for your feedback - feels like there is some good stuff in there to try. If you have anything to recommend, be my guest. I did wonder if those bonkers whisky notes were actually accurate... well, looks like I'm in for some primrose then :D