Home
>
Wine & Spirits
>
A Private Owners Guide to Bottling Fine Whisky

A Private Owners Guide to Bottling Fine Whisky

The majority of private owners of whisky casks are looking for an assessment of their options. The purpose of this article is to help answer questions that private owners may have about bottling their whisky casks.

Its always recommended that private owners bottle at cask strength as this minimises the number of bottles that you get making it cheaper for bottling and requiring less storage space. The materials needed for a single malt presentation include: tall round clear bottle, varnished wood topp stopper cork, gold coloured pure tin capsule and plain white outer cases. For private owners the use of a simple black and white label would be sufficient. On it would be your name, distillery from which the cask originated and the cask details including date of fill, cask number, strength etc. If you plan to print your own be aware that labels printed on ink jet computer printers are likely to have the ink run if the whisky is spilled on the label. A colour laser printer is however a very good option for short run label production.

The typical hogshead cask will yield around 280 bottles at a strength close to 60% alcohol. If you were to bottle at 40% this would entail the addition of around 120 litres of water and would require an extra 171 bottles to contain the increased bulk volume. It would also mean that the whisky would need to be chill filtered to maintain it's clarity and brightness as the reduction in strength causes the whisky to become cloudy. Chill filtration impairs the flavour of the whisky and is therefore avoided by purveyors of fine malt scotch and it is normal for such products to be bottled at such high strength, i.e. 46% or more.

There are options for defraying or deferring some of the costs involved:

Syndicates

Many people form a syndicate with family or friends. This reduces the cost burden but of course you get less of the whisky. This is not usually a problem as it will take five years to get through one cask at a bottle per week. A private syndicate who are not buying and selling can be treated in the same way as an individual private owner and does not currently need to be registered with Customs & Excise.

Bonded Storage

The majority of the expense when bottling is incurred in the form of duty and VAT which is also levied on the duty. You can choose to store your bottled whisky in a bonded warehouse. If you can locate one locally, and they are happy to support a private owner, then you can store the whisky under bond and pay the duty and VAT as and when you remove the goods for use. You are likely to be charged pennies per case per week for bonded but please do confirm this with your chosen warehouse in advance.

Kevan Jones is the Director of Craigton Packaging Ltd., they are a small privately owned company that specialises in very short run bottling operations. The majority of their work is single cask bottling for trade customers servicing the specialist malt whisky sector, although they also deal with private owners and syndicates.

Craigton Packaging Ltd. are based in Paisley and service UK and international customers.

t: 0044 (0)141 887 0244
f: 0044 (0)141 887 5462
e: info@craigton.com
w: info@craigton.com

spotless home service Lake Forest ..

In The News:

A Columbia University breach exposed names, Social Security numbers and academic records of nearly 869,000 people, with notifications beginning in August.

Rental car drivers use AI-powered apps like Proofr to protect themselves from unfair damage fees as major companies deploy automated inspection tools.

Fox News' AI newsletter brings you the latest on technology advancements around artificial intelligence.

OnTrac data breach between April 13-15, 2025, exposed personal information of over 40,000 people including Social Security numbers and medical records.

A woman named Wika announces her engagement to an AI chatbot sparking worldwide debate about virtual relationships and technology.

The notorious people search site National Public Data relaunches despite a previous breach affecting 3 billion individuals, raising fresh privacy concerns.

Revolutionary TRAUMAGEL gel controls life-threatening bleeding from gunshot wounds and traumatic injuries, helping first responders prevent prehospital deaths.

Protect your home network by enabling proper encryption, creating strong passwords, checking connected devices and using VPN and antivirus software.

The Navy's solar-powered Skydweller drone flew nonstop for 73 hours in Mississippi, proving renewable energy can power long-endurance military missions.

Moving and downsizing expose seniors to identity theft and scams as data brokers collect real estate records and personal information to sell to criminals.

ShengShu's Vidar technology revolutionizes humanoid robot training by using AI-generated synthetic video, reducing required training data from hours to just 20 minutes.

Apple's older Mac computers face security risks without regular updates, but 10 essential tips including FileVault encryption and strong passwords can keep aging Macs protected.

Self-driving trucks from PlusAI could reshape freight transportation by 2027, addressing driver shortages and reducing logistics costs for businesses.

Solar farms are turning to sheep instead of mowers to cut grass under solar panels, lowering costs, reducing emissions and creating new income for farmers.

Fraudsters posing as local officials are making fake calls about missed jury duty, demanding payments in a rising scheme that exploits fear of arrest.

Honeywell Aerospace engineers developed a "surface alert system" that gives pilots two aural warnings when they are 15 and 30 seconds away from a collision on the runway.

Anonymous researcher has scraped public Spotify accounts of politicians and celebrities, highlighting major privacy risks in default platform settings.

AI chatbot toys marketed as screen-free playmates could undermine children's empathy and critical thinking skills, according to pediatric specialists.

TransUnion confirms a major data breach affecting 4.4 million U.S. consumers after hackers exploited third-party Salesforce apps to steal personal info.

Scammers use fake DocuSign emails claiming Apple Pay charges to steal personal information using fraudulent phone numbers and fake receipts.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Farmers Insurance confirms data breach affecting over 1.1 million customers nationwide, exposing customer info including addresses.

The iconic Mary Kay pink Cadillac goes electric with the Cadillac Optiq, available only to the company's top 1% of sales force performers.

Cybercriminals abuse trusted Intel driver to gain kernel access and shut down Windows Defender, enabling undetected malware deployment since July 2025.

Using email aliases for online shopping and subscriptions can protect your privacy by preventing companies from linking your activity across websites.

A Private Owners Guide to Bottling Fine Whisky

Wine & Spirits