INDEPENDENT BOTTLERS

INDEPENDENT BOTTLERS are companies who buy casks which come on the open market either surplus to requirement from Distilleries, or they have requested casks to be filled on their behalf by the Distillery Companies. The casks will have been bought because they are good ones, verified by the Independent bottler who will be an expert in choosing wood and who's singular reputation depends on the quality of the product at end-game!

These casks are mostly kept on " Dunnage" (God's good compressed soil) in small warehouses, where large machinery does not need concrete flooring to operate on. Wood works better near to soil the natural element that it was close to during it's life.

Independent Bottlers will only bottle a dram when (1) If it has reached a state of perfection for the market intended. or (2) If the Bank Manager is pressing hard on the overdraft.

Independent Bottlers will wait sometimes up to 70 years for the perfect bottling. Patience, great skill and understanding as the casks are "Farmed" throughout the maturation process make the end product special and as perfect as can be. Independent "Noses" know the right moment to bottle the best drams there are to be found, because of a continuing human interaction with the casks during maturation.

Independent bottlers generally will never "Chill-filter" a dram. (A process to extract oils from whisky that may go solid and make the dram milky if water or ice were to be added). Whiskies 20 years old or less and below 46% alc./vol will have to be chill-filtered for the modern World Market. Neither will Independent bottlers put distiller's caramel for coloring into the dram to maintain harmony with previous batches of whisky. Every cask or marriage of casks is a "Natural Product" that it will be different to any other - It will be bespoke and the whisky itself a personality, reflecting the true relationship between malt spirit and the wood that it has been matured in.

Independent bottlings are often less expensive than if Distilleries were to bottle this way. (A rarity in general). Independents bottle at either 46% alc./vol., 50% alc./vol. or at original cask strength.

If you wish for the very best of whisky, then chose Single Cask Bottlings at 46% alc./vol. or more from an Independent Bottler or one of a handful of Distillery that make the effort to keep Malt whisky natural.