You may have caught a glimpse, while perusing the menu of a specialty whisky bar, that you find two little letters next to some of the bottles – IB. Often accompanied by headers like Signatory, Hidden Spirits, Wilson & Morgan, Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS), Rest & Be Thankful, Silver Seal, WhiskyAge, or Gordon & MacPhail, these are just some of the wide world of Independent Bottlers that help bring us the delicious whisky from some of our favourite distilleries. But what role does an independent bottler play, how did they come to be a part of the industry, and who are some of the indie bottlers bringing us the whisky we love?

WHAT IS AN INDEPENDENT BOTTLER?

When we think of the whisky we drink, most commonly we tend to conjure up images of core range expressions, Caol Ila 12 Year Old, Oban 14 Year Old or Glenfiddich 12 Year Old. These are what most people in the industry refer to as OBs - original bottlings. They’re bottled by the same people who produce it. The main point of difference for an Independent Bottler is that they don’t actually produce the liquid in their bottles, which sometimes can often result in a better price point for IBs, since they don’t have to bear many overhead costs involved in the production.

The general industry-accepted definition for an Independent Bottler is a person or company that buys whisky barrels from a distillery and fills them into bottles sold under their own label. Sometimes they will obtain and bottle exclusive single casks from a distillery like Wilson & Morgan does, refinish already purchased whisky with their own choice of cask like Firkin does, or even purchase potential whisky, new make spirit laid down specifically for them (either at their own warehouse or the distillery’s) like the SMWS will often do. 

WHY WOULD A DISTILLERY SELL THEIR WHISKY TO IBs?

Working with independent bottlers can be a great benefit to the distillery, as it can offer them the chance to experiment more, knowing that if they don’t bottle it, an indie bottler probably will. It also allows consumers to try whisky from ‘blending distilleries’, ones that don’t have a core release and would never see the light of day otherwise, like Glenlossie. Whilst Clynelish distillery has a core bottle the 14 year old, around 95% of the spirit produced at Clynelish is used in Johnnie Walker, mostly Gold Label. So if you want to explore other whiskies from Clynelish your best bet is through an independent bottler. Or another situation, like the case with Highland Park distillery back in 2017, is where a change in ownership resulted in the decision to focus on a sherry cask flavour profile. This change in cask type usage made thousands of barrels unusable for their core range expressions since they didn’t fit the flavour profile they wanted to achieve moving forward. Those no longer needed barrels were instead sold off to indie bottlers so that they can still be enjoyed but are no longer taking up precious space in their warehouse. Highland Park now utilises much more sherry cask in their core age statement range, meaning for a while the market was flooded with bourbon cask matured “Secret Orkney Distillery” whisky, much to everyone’s delight. It also serves to help huge distilleries with high-production, like Caol Ila - who are one of the distilleries most found in indie bottlings, making sure that barrels that didn’t mature to their specific flavour profile goals are still able to be bottled for peated whisky lovers.

THE ORIGIN STORY

The origin of Independent Bottlers goes all the way back to the early 1800s, when local grocers began selling their own blends of whisky, buying casks from nearby distilleries and blending in-store, curating each bottle for each customer. This early practice was how Johnnie Walker famously got started, but another (arguably more renowned) grocer was Gordon & MacPhail, based in Elgin, Scotland, who sourced from neighbouring distilleries like Macallan and Mortlach. They amassed a great collection of barrels that continued to mature, and were able to keep trading and survive through both World Wars, eventually bottling a whopping 80 Year Old Glenlivet from their collection in 2021. While they predominantly focused on blended malts in the early years, throughout the 1900s they also released single malt bottlings. This was unusual for the time since the Single Malt didn’t become globally popular, in the way we know today, until the late 1960s. Before then, single malts were a more niche market, with most consumers reaching for accessible, affordable, and often equally delicious, blended whiskies.

Apart from Gordon & MacPhail, most Independent Bottlers we see today were started in the 1980s, companies like Signatory Vintage which was founded by two brothers fixated on bottling single malts. The Symington brothers later went on to purchase Edradour Distillery in the highlands, moving their indie bottling operation to the site and joining a growing trend of bottlers purchasing small or mothballed distilleries, or in the case of Morrison (bottlers of the Carn Mor label), building their own distillery. Gordon & MacPhail even got into it, purchasing Benromach Distillery and revamping the core range expressions, but choosing to bottle under the distillery name rather than siphon barrels under their indie label.

INDEPENDENT BOTTLERS TODAY

Nowadays the Scotch whisky consumer is spoiled for choice, from the Italian bottling powerhouses of Samaroli, Hidden Spirits, or Wilson & Morgan (a Venetian company actually called Rossi & Rossi who figured customers would be less inclined to trust the quality of their bottlings based off the name and instead decided to use generic Scottish monikers!), to the new fun, modern and eccentric bottlers such as That Boutique-y Whisky Company. Alongside iconic whisky clubs such as the Scotch Malt Whisky Society who effectively operate as an independent bottler (and who have won Independent Bottler of the Year multiple times at awards in Scotland), and bars or bottle shops-turned-bottlers like Highlander Inn, The Whisky Exchange, and The Artist Collective, there are companies all over the world each with their own hallmark and inspiration bottling some incredible whiskies.

One of the most outlandish and hilarious of these companies is WhiskySponge, a venture founded by Angus MacRaild, a respected member of the Scotch whisky industry and founder of the world’s funniest whisky blog, also called WhiskySponge. From cracking jokes about Gordon & MacPhail’s 80 Year Old Mortlach being essentially ‘too young to release’ to the most inappropriate tasting notes on the back of each bottle, Angus shows that old, refined and quality whisky doesn’t need to be taken too seriously and that we should embrace the fun and the ridiculous side of this centuries-old industry.

INDEPENDENT BOTTLERS DOWN UNDER – YES THEY EXIST AND YES THEY ARE DELICIOUS

Here in Australia, we don’t have to look too far to find some indie bottlers, with most of them sourcing and bottling rare and unique Australian single casks. Whisky lovers like Tim Duckett have pioneered the IB industry here, with his company Heartwood being one of the first to independently bottle Australian whisky as both single cask releases and, later, vattings of barrels from his huge collection. Tim’s mission is to showcase incredible local whisky at natural cask strength, while also chasing his ‘flavour goal’ of the Brontosaurus whisky – a slow build-up into a rich middle palette with a loooooong finish.

While Heartwood is one of the most well-known indie bottlers, they’re certainly not the only ones. Tasmanian Independent Bottlers (or TIBs for short) followed the Heartwood model, sourcing Australian and New Zealand whisky, but with the choice to bottle at lower ABV, making them more approachable for consumers. In recent years pet projects of the Aussie whisky-obsessed like Dark Valley have popped up, bottling only Tasmanian whisky, while co-operatives like the one started by Peter Bignell sought to rescue ex-Nant barrels from their sordid past and give them (and investors) a new life under their Remnant label. Often some distilleries will utilise independent bottling as a way to foreshadow their own single malt whisky while it quietly matures. Some of the smaller IBs to do this are Derwent Distilling Co in Tasmania, Highwayman up in Byron Bay, and Craft Works, based a few hours west of Sydney, who made use of their IB business to give more freedom to their distillery side. More and more Aussie IBs are appearing, with the likes of Anthropocene Whisky from Adelaide, and Ambassador Whisky in Sydney. Even social media platforms are getting into the indie bottling sphere with Facebook groups like Dram Full, Australian Whisky Appreciation Society (AWAS) and Whisky Lovers Australia who have bottled a number of their own labelled whiskies exclusively available for their respective members.

DO ALL DISTILLERIES WORK WITH INDEPENDENT BOTTLERS AND WHAT DO TEASPOONS HAVE TO DO WITH WHISKY?

While some distilleries work in unison with indie bottlers, not all are eager to have their whisky repackaged by a third party. Kilchoman distillery on Islay refuses to allow independent bottlings and were upset when a company bottled some of their whisky anyway using a tricky loophole. Meanwhile some larger distilleries like Glenfiddich, Highland Park and Laphroaig recognise the usefulness of indie bottlers but won’t allow the use of their names on the labels, which led to codenames for some of these (Wardhead, Secret Orkney and Williamson respectively). Others use a method called ‘teaspooning’ where a small amount of single malt from another distillery is added to the barrel before sale, meaning that it can no longer be classified as a single malt and must be labelled a blended malt. This can bring the resale price down for the bottler but can be worth it to bottle exceptional barrels. One of the distilleries best known for this practice is Glenmorangie who require both teaspooning and a codename, Westport, but the barrels purchased by bottlers are frequently of exceptional quality despite this hassle. A lot of codenames used for distilleries relate to them in some way and it can be fun to connect them with their ‘alter-ego’ bottlings. Laphroaig’s codename of ‘Williamson’ is in honour of Bessie Williamson who owned and operated the distillery during WW2, was one of very few female distillery owners at the time, and is widely known on Islay as the ‘First Lady of Scotch’ for her work championing the island and Scotch whisky internationally. Some codenames have more obscure references such as ‘Pluscarden’, a name for Miltonduff based on the 18th century abbey that the distillery was built within, and even better is Loch Lomond, occasionally found as ‘Haddock’ named after the Captain from the comic series Tintin, who is often drawn with a bottle of Loch Lomond whisky in hand -  you can just barely make out their iconic stag logo in the cartoon frames.

The sheer number of Independent Bottlers available to consumers grows all the time, encouraged by the whisky industry’s growing number of distilleries all around the world and increased demand for unusual, unique, and hard-to-find whiskies. 

We chatted to world renowned whisky reviewer Serge Valentin from whiskyfun, who said the most bottled Scotch whisky found as IBs are Caol Ila, Bowmore, Highland Park, Laphroaig, Springbank, Clynelish, Bunnahabhain, Ardbeg, Longmore, Macallan, Bruichladdich, Glenfarclas, Talisker, Mortlach and Linkwood. But there are tens of thousands of whiskies bottled by IBs all over the world, it’s a wide category to explore, and with new distilleries opening every year it just gets bigger.

Whether you want to find something local, start drinking single casks, try a new distillery that you would never be able to try otherwise, or even experience more from your favourite distillery after you’ve exhausted their regular releases, Independent Bottlers open up a new world of whisky to drammers at every stage of their whisky journey. So next time you’re at that specialty whisky bar or browsing through a retailer, take a gamble on an independently bottled dram and you may find yourself with a new favourite bottler, a hidden gem distillery, or fall in love all over again with your favourite distillery!

THIS FEBRUARY WE’RE CELEBRATING INDEPENDENT BOTTLERS AT TWL

At The Whisky List, we’ve decided to dedicate February 2022 entirely to Independent bottlers. We’ve partnered with six super interesting Indies; Carn Mor, Rolling Cask, WhiskySponge, Dram Mor, WhiskyAge and Highlander Inn, each known for their award winning and highly sought after whiskies. We’ve secured a selection of tasty whiskies from each of these indies, with the following distilleries featured including Laphroaig, Glenrothes, Highland Park, Bunnahabhain, Teaninich, Glenlossie, Aldunie, Glen Grant, Ledaig, Secret Speyside, and a super rare bottling from legendary Japanese distillery Mars Shinshu.