【Exclusive Interview】Part1: Rebecca Hamilton – The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Artisanal Spirits Company Chief Marketing & Experience Officer

Since its establishment in 1983, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) has expanded its members and fans globally. Their unique, revolutionary, yet fundamentally logical way of treating and enjoying whisky has created new standards within this industry. The SMWS does not label the whisky with its information but instead gives it a more sensuous description, making whisky more approachable and complex at the same time.

For this 2 part article, we will compose the interview we have conducted at the venue of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, The Vaults. We were honored to converse with Rebecca Hamilton, who was the Chief Marketing  and Experience Officer at the Artisanal Spirits Company (owner company of the SMWS), from 2021 to late 2023. (This interview was conducted on September 30th, 2023)

In part 1, we will focus on the introduction of Rebecca herself, as well as the SMWS, its history, and whisky making.

The Basic Information of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society

The SMWS      Logo Cited from The Scotch Malt Whisky Society website

About Rebecca Hamilton

Rebecca with the SMWS bottled whisky

Dear WHISKY：
Could you introduce yourself?

Rebecca：
My name is Rebecca Hamilton and I’m the Chief Marketing Experience Officer for the Artisanal Spirits Company. The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is part of the Artisanal Spirits Company family, and it’s our most known and loved brand. I’ve been in the business for just over two years now.
I come from an entertainment, hospitality, and travel background. I’ve worked in brand marketing and experience design for 25 years, and it was an absolute privilege and joy to be asked to come and do this job because ultimately it allowed me to combine all the things that I’ve done in my career into one job. I am very lucky to do what I do and I have a lot of fun with it.

Dear WHISKY：
What brought you to work at the SMWS?

Rebecca：
I was headhunted. I was approached and had a conversation with the SMWS. It felt like such a serendipitous moment because it was a great combination of what I could bring and what the business was looking for and looking to do.

About the Scotch Malt Whisky Society

Overview of the SMWS

Emblem of the SMWS

Dear WHISKY：
What exactly is the SMWS? 

Rebecca：
SMWS is a membership organization with around 40,000 members worldwide. It purchases whisky casks from various distilleries and bottles them to share with the members. We like to think of it as borderless in many ways. Borderless means it connects people in conversation to talk over whisky. The SMWS could break down country borders and many more borders through friendships, camaraderie, and discussion, which we are very proud of.

Dear WHISKY：
What makes the SMWS so unique?

Rebecca：
One of the things that makes the SMWS so unique is that it has this combination of incredible, fantastic, high-quality whisky. Still, it has many experiences, such as the network rooms, the festivals we hold, and the tastings we run in partner bars. We operate in a digital and a physical space worldwide, meaning we have delivered this combination of genuinely 360 experiences.

History of the SMWS

Dear WHISKY：
When and by whom was the SMWS established?

Rebecca：
It was established 40 years ago by a man called Pip Hills. As a whisky enthusiast himself, Pip wanted to express his passion and love for cask-strength whiskies by sharing them and letting the public know how magical whiskies are. Pip’s spirit remains valid within the SMWS and its building, as that exact origin place is still the flagship brand home. That room is called The Vaults, and this spiritual home carries and reminds the SMWS’s mission to every member who visits.

The Vaults

Whisky-making of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society

Selecting whiskies

Dear WHISKY：
What made the SMWS so successful in creating a relationship with the distilleries?

Rebecca：
Our spirit team works hard to go out and talk to the distilleries and people about bringing in whiskies and working with different maturation methods to create a masterpiece. The director of that team is Kai Ivalo, who has been with the SMWS for 19 years.

Duty-free samples for selecting process

Dear WHISKY：
How do you select the whiskies? 

Rebecca：
Ultimately, we have a level of quality control that no other whisky company or brand has. We only buy a certain quality and taste and then bring that into our liquid inventory to consider what we do with it regarding the maturation method.

Maturation

Dear WHISKY：
What does the maturing process look like?

Rebecca：
We sometimes change the cask once or twice, maybe more, to play around with the flavor to really add and build the flavor from the wood and the cask. When you look at our bottles, you might see first fill, second fill, or the multiple woods that we’ll put in. Each of those really builds flavor, flavor, flavor, and also creates something that’s totally unique, like it has never been tasted before and it will never be tasted ever again. So, it is a one-off moment in time as the flavor experience. That’s what we aim to do when we match liquid, wood, and how we mature it.

Bottling

The very 1st bottle the SMWS has bottled

Dear WHISKY：
What does the bottling process look like? 

Rebecca：
Once the whisky matures, we will select, check, and test the liquid to determine when it will be in the best condition and ready to drink. We then pull that down and put it through a series of taste tests to double-check if it is ready for our formal tasting panel. The tasting panel will essentially approve that the liquid is at another level, and if not, it will be put back into its original position. The tasting panel is at the final point of quality control, and experts will sit and taste this whisky together, writing down tasting notes until they agree on specific notes.

2nd to 6th of the very first 6 bottles that the SMWS has bottled

Paneling

Dear WHISKY：
How are the tasting panels operated? 

Rebecca：
To make sure that we have different selections of taste buds, we rotate our panelists. There are about 25 of them in total, and depending on the amount of the whisky they are paneling at that moment, a few, often 3-4, of them would be selected to sit together and discuss the whisky. These panelists are international, and global members often get involved when visiting The Vaults. We organize exciting paneling events occasionally. For the one we had earlier this year, we contacted our international members to gather in the same room to panel and select a bottle for each of their regions.

Whisky bottled at the Event, chosen by ambassadors from each region

At Last

In Part 1 of this article, Rebecca has shared us an overview of herself and the SMWS, while paying closer attention to SMWS’s whisky making methods and history. Combination of their percise craftsmanship and immeasurable passion towards not only whisky but also towards people’s drinking experiences, truly makes their whisky phenomenal. The SMWS’s whisky certainly connects its members despite any borders or divisions, on account of their “magical whiskies”.

Part 2 of this article would focus on the SMWS’s spirit and philosophy broken down through Rebecca’s personal experiences. Do not miss out on the information included in part 2, about the SMWS’s new projects and services launching this November!