Despite being just a short walk from the station in Farringdon, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society's members room on Greville Street is discreetly tucked away. We're invited along for a newcomer-friendly tasting experience on a weekday afternoon, which predictably ends with a sozzled yet satisfied stagger back to the tube.
Obviously London isn't short of great whisky bars, but the Scotch Malt Whisky Society is distinguished in a few ways: one, they get around 250 bottles of each cask, so there's a finite nature to everything you can drink. Two, they independently bottle and label their own whiskies, meaning that the product is primarily designed to make you think about taste and not distilleries, region, branding or anything else.
Their tasting panel matches each whisky to a flavour profile. These eight flavour profiles include such variations as Flagrant & Floral, Smoky & Fruity and Toasted Oak & Vanilla. The point is to find a whisky that matches your sensibilities, and if that profile works for you, there will always be something new to try on a repeat visit.
A warming introduction
The staff at the members room clearly pride themselves on being novice-friendly. Up to 80% of the flavour comes from wood, they remind us. And most of the tasting is smelling the whisky. They presented us with three bottles initially: one called Sweet & Zesty, one Dried Fruit & Spices and one Bold & Peaty.
Travelling across these three flavour profiles in that order was the right way to do it. The Sweet & Zesty option ('The Village Patisserie at Dawn') helps our palate adjust and breaks us in – it's the most familiar kind of taste if your primary exposure to whisky is sweeter off-the-shelf supermarket stuff.
Following this, the Dried Fruit & Spices choice ('A Roly Poly in the Hay Loft') smells richer, and deepens the impact on our taste buds with a spicy orange aftertaste.
By the time we've reached the Bold & Peaty option, though (the filthily named 'Ointment on Roasted Nuts'), the other flavours prove hard to go back to. At first, this is an almost confrontationally smoky whisky, especially for a relative newcomer. But once the palate adjusts, the darker aftertaste is extremely pleasing.
Again, given the finite nature of what the SMSW does, you won't even be able to try these exact flavours for yourself. As one customer tells us, though, that's part of the appeal – you might buy a bottle of something in the moment because you know it's not going to come around again.
Plus, the flavour profiles mean you'll always find something else in that proximity next time you visit the members room.
'Eventised' whisky
To cap it off, the staff bring out a pair of bottles they'd recently launched as part of a Summer Equinox event: one representing light ('Riesling Spritz in the Sun'), one representing dark ('Spice it Up After Dark'). Both nicely complement each other, even if once again the deeper and darker tastes of the latter win out for us.
The idea of 'eventised' whisky based on the calendar is a fun notion and no doubt the kind of initiative that keeps members coming back.
At this point, five drinks in, the bartender senses our increasing enthusiasm for the smokier side of things. Stopping just short of saying "let me show you the real shit", he reaches for something special from behind the bar.
The final whisky we try is called 'Smouldering Mojo'. It's an "experimental" small batch blended malt that's been matured in Mezcal casks. This comes under the society's more provocative 'Heresy' label and hasn't been available since last summer – this was from the bartender's own personal stash. He tells me that peaty whiskies were what he grew up with, and therefore his preferences are skewed as a result.
Smouldering Mojo is the extraordinary-tasting final boss of smoky whiskies, and it no doubt won't be to the taste of some traditionalists because of how it was made. But it summarises the mission of the society: to enjoy the drink however you want. If you want one of these fancy whiskies served with Coke, they won't mind.
Getting involved
The SMSW could fairly be called attainable luxury – membership starts from a reasonable £100 online (with a £75 option in-person that offers a smaller bottle freebie). The most enticing part of that proposition is surely having exclusive access to the members' rooms of each venue, with three other locations in Scotland.
The possibility of a quiet drink out of the way in central London with familiar bar staff and accessible flavour profiles is a nice pitch, even if you're a whisky novice and this isn't a world you've really dipped into before. It's no surprise that some regulars visit up to four times a week, according to the staff there.
It's also a comforting retreat if you're working from home and need a break from your computer. The age range of clientele on our weekday visit was incredibly wide, and members can sign in up to three visitors, too. The extra cost, of course, comes in ticketed tasting events, and the mild threat that you'll find a drink you like and leave with a hundred quid bottle of it.
As ever with the extensive tasting notes for each whisky, your actual ability to detect jam roly-poly, cinnamon danish or any other dessert in what you're imbibing may vary.
But even if your vocabulary to describe whisky only extends to basic adjectives like 'sweet', 'smoky' and 'spicy' barked out in Partridge-like fashion, you'll find something to like here. Alcohol branding can be incredibly cynical, but at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society you can only make decisions based on taste, not graphic design or fonts. There's something refreshingly accessible about flavour being the only real pitch.
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