What is a shop's or club's own bottling?

A shop, club or association buys a cask or part of a cask, chooses the moment of bottling and has the bottles filled under its own label.

The cask usually goes through an independent bottler, who manages the stock, supplies samples and arranges the bottling. The buyer tastes and decides whether the whisky goes into the bottle now or later.

With a hand-filled bottle at the distillery, the same happens on a small scale: the visitor fills a bottle themselves from a designated cask.

Regulation 9 of the Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 prohibits the use of a distillery name as a brand name when the whisky was not entirely distilled there.

The rule also prohibits any labelling or presentation that could lead the public to think the whisky was distilled somewhere other than where it actually was. For single malt and single grain, the impression must likewise not be given that someone else distilled it.

Bottlers therefore work with their own series names or with a description of the region. On the shelf you see this in names that refer to an area rather than to a distillery.

The label usually states the name of the customer, the cask number, the filling year, the bottling year and the number of bottles.

Under regulation 12 an age statement must be given in years and refers to the youngest whisky in the bottle. A distillation year may only be added if the vintage year, the maturation period or the age also appears in the same field of view.

Stating the number of bottles is not mandatory. Many bottlers do it anyway, because the run is fixed for a single cask.

No, as soon as the cask is empty the bottling ceases to exist.

The next cask from the same distillery gives a different whisky, with a different cask number and a different maturation course. Even two casks filled on the same day diverge after years.

Anyone who wants to keep a bottle from such a series and later open a second one should buy both at the same time. Reordering is not possible.

A standard bottle is a blend of many casks and is repeated; an own bottling usually comes from a single cask and is not repeated.

In a standard bottling, casks are blended so that each batch resembles the previous one. The alcohol percentage is evened out and the profile stays recognisable year after year.

With an own bottling that step is missing, and a cask number with a run size more often appears on the bottle. We go through exactly what the label says with you in the shop, bottle by bottle.