 The world of Independent Bottlers can
sometimes be
confusing to those who are new to
whisky.
Most whisky, whether it is malt or
blended is bottled by its producers in
what is known as an original bottling, but this is not always the
case.
An Independent Bottler does not
have a distillery and does
not produce whisky but they bottle whisky
which they have sourced from the
distilleries under their own brand name. Independent
Bottlers tend not to concentrate on
bottling whisky in bulk but tend to
concentrate more on bottling single
casks, usually with the whisky at a
higher strength without chilfiltering or
added colouring.
Independent
Bottlers often focus on premium whiskies
and off the beaten track whiskies, they offer some very unique single malt
whiskies which have been bottled at
different ages and strengths than the
original distillery bottlings that are
available.
With the huge rise in
popularity of malt whisky in the last 20
years the number of independent bottlers
has grown leading to an increase in
competition between the independent
bottlers. This rise in popularity has
also caused the distillers to bottle
more of their own single malts making it
increasingly difficult for the
independents to source as many good
casks of whisky as they previously did.
This has led some independents such as
Ian Macleod Distillers to acquire their
own distilleries such as Glengoyne and
Edradour.
There are a few whisky
distillers who object to independent
bottlers using their distillery names on
the independent bottlings, they believe
that they have little control over the
quality of whisky being bottled.
The major independent Bottlers such as
Douglas Laing, Gordon & MacPhail, Ian
Macleod and Signatory undoubtedly play a
very important role in the supply of our
favourite whiskies, offering diversity
from the original distillery bottlings
and sometimes bottlings from
distilleries that have long since
closed.
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Independent Bottlers
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Select an Independent Bottler for more
info on their history and the range of
whisky they have to offer:
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