Independent bottlers play an important role in the whisky industry. Single malts and single grains, which are not bottled by their owners, are given a chance by the independents.
Independent bottlers are therefore companies that buy casks of whisky, sometimes maturing them a second time in another cask, blending them with other malt or grain whiskies, bottling them and marketing them. The whisky is sourced from distilleries either directly or through Broker's houses. They even have their own warehouses in which they further mature and store their barrels of whisky.
As a whisky lover, you actually have two choices: you buy an official bottling from a distillery owner or you choose an independent bottling.
Whisky production often revolves around one thing: consistency. Therefore, for distillery bottlings, for example, several barrels are mixed together to achieve the same taste batch after batch. Also, for purely cosmetic reasons, the choice is often made to cold filter the whisky. If whisky is bottled at an alcohol content below 45 percent, it can become cloudy if water or ice is added. The advantage of a clear whisky then has the disadvantage that fatty acids, proteins and esters are sometimes also filtered out of the whisky as a result, which loses some of its flavour components, which is unfortunate. Caramel colouring (E150a) is used by the whisky industry to ensure batch equality, always the same colour of whisky.
Independent bottlers almost never do cold filtration or caramel tinting because it is the natural colour that can tell you so much about a whisky. How active was the oak cask? What was in the cask that was used before? Their bottlings are allowed to differ and that is the strength of the independents who also more often bottle Single Cask whiskies or Small Batch (some barrels together).
Most independent bottlers disclose everything from what date it was distilled and bottled to the quantity of bottles available. The distillation date should be taken with a grain of salt as often several runs are combined and stored in a tank and only filled in the barrels at a later date. Those dates and number of bottles are of course very important as a reference for the enthusiast who is looking for just that one identical or special bottle.
Take a look at our library of independent bottlings.
