Each quarter, a walnut case arrives sealed in wax. Inside it, five whiskies that could not be found together anywhere else: single casks, private bottlings, and distillery stock that never reaches a shelf.
The tasting notes are written by the people who made them. The members who receive them are few enough to know one another by number.
There is no shop. There is no price list. Membership is extended, not purchased.
The whisky
We do not sell whisky. We find it, in the warehouses and private stocks where the best of it waits, and we bring it to the few people who will understand what they are holding.
Single cask, by rule
Every dram in the case comes from one cask. Not a marriage, not a batch. One barrel, filled on one day, and never repeated once it is gone.
Chosen in the warehouse
We taste from the cask before it is bottled, and we walk away from most of them. What reaches the case is the small fraction we would pour for ourselves.
As it left the cask
Natural colour. No chill filtration. Bottled at the strength the cask gave it, or reduced only where the whisky asks for it.
Stock that never reaches a shelf
Distillery reserves, independent bottlers’ private parcels, and casks set aside for the society alone. Whiskies you cannot buy, because they were never offered.
Four cases a year
Each quarter, five drams of thirty millilitres in a sealed walnut case, with tasting notes written by the people who made them. Enough to know a whisky properly; never so much that it sits unfinished.
Each collection tells one story
The regions of Britain and Ireland. A single spirit through five casks. The last casks of a closed distillery. The theme is announced only when the case arrives.
When a cask is exceptional enough to bottle in full, members are offered it first and privately. Most of those bottlings never leave the society.
The quarterly collection
Collection No. 01 travels the whisky-making islands, from Speyside to the English coast.
The distilleries are named only on the labels, and the labels are only seen by members.
The society
What is extended to a member, and what is asked of them.
- A number, held for life
- Founding members are numbered from 001. The number appears on the case, the card and the correspondence, and is never reissued.
- Four collections a year
- Delivered by hand where we can, by courier where we cannot. Each case is sealed in wax and signed off by the person who assembled it.
- The private gatherings
- Tastings in cellars, lodges and distilleries that do not open their doors to the public, with the people who made the whisky in the room.
- First right of refusal
- When a single cask is bottled for the society, members are offered it before anyone else is told it exists.
- Discretion
- We do not publish our members' names. We ask that members do not publish ours.
Request an invitation
Founding membership is limited to two hundred and fifty. Every application is read personally. Only a few are approved.
We reply to every application, including the ones we decline. Please allow up to three weeks.
How we handle what you send is set out in our privacy notice.