/ck/ - Food & Cooking

This is now a whisky thread

Hey also, can we discuss independent bottlers? I hear people rave about them, but what's the big deal? If the mash, the distillation and the aging in the cask are what give the whisky flavor and character, what good is changing who puts it from the cask into the bottle? I suppose if they don't chill-filter, add color, or water it down that's a benefit, but I'm not sure that justifies the existence of multiple different independent bottlers.

Unless it's a misnomer and these 'independent bottlers' are more like 'independent caskers' who somehow obtain the raw distillate and then provide their own casks to age it in, that would make more sense. But how do they get the whisky in that case? Do they make an agreement with the distillery, drop off some casks for filling then pick them up? Do they buy some casks from the batch and empty them into their own?

And why do distilleries agree to this? Seems like the indies would have to pay a pretty penny to a distillery for such a privilege, which would then significantly increase the price of their product (unless they have crazy competitive supply-chain advantage, which no small business will in the age of Diageo). No one would buy the product at this increased price unless there were something really special and different about it, which would seem impossible unless they're using extra-special casks made only with planks from the legendary deku tree or something.