Endless epiphanies… almost 40 years later
What a relief to reach the end of the year and feel that most of our members around the world are back to doing what we love most of all: getting together in person to share great drams and good times. For the first time since 2019, I can truly say it’s been a fantastic year of flavour-fuelled adventure, enjoyed not only online but face-to-face. As we head into the Society’s 40th anniversary year, we will celebrate by offering you more ways than ever before to develop and nurture your passion for our SMWS drams and to savour your experiences in our amazing whisky club.
WORDS: DAVID RIDLEY
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow. That surely is true of how it feels to witness the Society’s growth around the world – compared with the small gathering of pals who shared that first incredible experience of dishing out their first cask strength, single cask whisky in Pip Hills’ Edinburgh flat.
That original vision and intent is truer today than it ever has been. And it’s amazing to still have Pip involved as part of this Society he founded back in 1983. As we roll into our 40th anniversary year, he’ll be telling us all about his very own whisky epiphany, with a special film from the Aberdeenshire farm where he first sampled whisky in its purest form.
The beauty of the story for me is that we continue to create a flavour epiphany for new members around the world – everyday. We bring people together the same way that Pip’s first cask created new friendships – and word of this incredible product spread far and wide.
This year we carried out an extensive survey with our members both in the UK and all around the world. We wanted to take a chance to ask you for your feedback, find out what it is you want to see from the Society and understand what you want to feel engaged and satisfied about in years to come.
BELOW: Pip in rural Aberdeenshire
Take a whistlestop tour of our Year in Review for 2022…
As we reach the end of this year and are about to hit a special anniversary – we now have about 36,000 members around the world. You told us that you are looking not only to enjoy and share our whiskies, but to also develop your whisky knowledge and appreciation.
In response to that, we now produce Unfiltered magazine content every month, with a huge range of whisky insights and features to help you enjoy what’s in your glass. Our Whisky Talk podcast has also hit a recent milestone, with more than 250,000 downloads and 50 episodes to dive into.
Next year we’re planning to bring you more on education, with course and academy choices where you can learn more about SMWS flavour creation and the wider whisky world.
We’re also planning to make sure the right amount and type of information reaches you depending on where you are on your whisky journey and knowledge – we want to make sure there is something for everyone, delivered in a way that you want it.
One of the great pleasures of the past year has been being back out in person at festivals and events across the world, and next year we’ll be looking to expand the ways that members can engage with the Society. That could be through different tasting experiences, new dedicated spaces for members, more events and with a Society presence in new partner bars across the world. But it will also be through the use of technology and the ability to bring you together for virtual tastings and online events, no matter where you’re based.
After all the online activities of the past three years, we are now setting up our own broadcast studio space so that we can raise the level of production and find ever-more interesting ways to share the whisky love far and wide with members. At the same time, we’ll be enhancing your mobile experience and making sure it reflects your specific location and the language you use. There will be more ways than ever before to not only stay connected with the Society and everything we’ve got going on, but with your fellow members – to connect locally, to catch up together virtually, or to meet kindred spirits wherever in the world you happen to be.
Beyond all of that, we’re incredibly excited about your whisky year ahead – 2022 has seen us invest in our own warehouse and bottling plant, giving the Society greater control over the process of getting the whisky to you in the most efficient way as possible. Our Spirits Team is hard at work seeking out incredible casks, building relationships with suppliers, managing our maturing stocks and constantly innovating when it comes to working with different wood types or creating new small batch blends. We are developing new and fun ways to buy and engage with whisky as we go into 2023. And you can expect to see a few surprises for our 40th anniversary year.
Watch this space for more amazing sherry-matured whisky coming your way, along with some incredible story-telling from Spain as we tell you all about the beautiful journey of Scotch and sherry.
We hope you agree there are great things in store for every member of the Society as we enter our fifth decade together. I look forward to seeing you online or in person at some point during 2023. In the meantime, here’s hoping the end of 2022 finds you in good spirits.
From everyone at the Society, Slàinte! David Ridley, Chief Member Champion