If you’ve attended whisky-related events or been around whisky enthusiasts to know, you may have been told that specific whiskies as IB or OB. What does that mean?
In simple terms they refer to ‘Official Bottling as well as Independent Bottling. OB is straightforward to define They are expressions and bottles that are released by a specific distillery with its very own brand or name.
Independent bottlings, on other on the other hand, are whiskies that were purchased from a distillery owned by another party, and later packaged or sold under the third party’s brand name or brand.
The most renowned independent bottler of all time is Cadenhead established around 177 years ago in 1842. Since it there have been numerous independent whisky bottlers on the market that range from the big ones such as The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) Douglas Laing and to those run by smaller businesses such as That Boutique-y Whisky Company, or even individuals such as Malaysia’s individual Eiling Lim.
Heck you could even Wholly Spirits is an independent bottler. We’ve already got one bottle of the Tears Of The Still series and we plan to release more in the near future.
Independent bottlings may be sometimes confusing However, many of the bottles available are not just excellent whiskies, but also have a piece of whisky’s past.
Here are some things you need to be aware of about bottlers who are independent.
1.) They don’t produce their own whisky.
In simple terms an independent bottler an entity that buys whisky casks from various distilleries, mostly time mature whiskies that are in good condition and bottle them with their own custom-designed containers and labelling.
Certain major bottlers, for example Gordon & MacPhail (Benromach) have distilleries of their own, however. Douglas Laing has also recently constructed a new distillery near Glasgow.
2.) Each release is different and unique
Contrary to official bottlings, which are typically made up of malts, which creates a whisky which is a particular flavor profile that the distillery desires independent bottlings are distinct and distinct expressions of a specific distillery.
If you’ve tried whisky from two casks at the same distillery made on the same date and in the same kind of wood, and perhaps released at the same time most likely, they’d differ from one other because the wood makes sure that every whisky cask is distinct.
For instance, Eiling Lim, That Boutique-y Whisky Company and SMWS have all produced Bowmore whiskies prior to. But every single one of these Bowmores differs in terms of the year and cask, age and flavor.
3.) Certain distilleries won’t permit their labels to be included in independent bottlings
Have you ever wondered why it is that you’ll find labels like “Orkney Malt” or “Speyside Malt or ‘Speyside Malt’ on an IB label rather than the name of the distillery? While most distilleries do not mind having their brand names appearing on IB bottles but there are some distilleries who prohibit any use of their brand’s name on independent labelling labels for bottling.
This is why you rarely get any IB bottle of Glenfiddich, Balvenie or Glenfarclas The distilleries will not permit their whiskies to be packaged under any other name apart from their own.
It’s not that there aren’t whiskies produced by distilleries like these available. There is the Scotch Malt Whisky Company is known for its whiskies not including names of distilleries on labels but instead using a particular code instead.
The code consists in two figures, the second which is the name of the distillery, and the second indicating the number of casks that come from the distillery that were stored and bottled. For example, Cask 7.164 – the number 7 is the Longmorn distillery which is the 164th cask of that distillery which has been purchased by SMWS.
4.) Certain distilleries “teaspoon” their whiskies
One method that certain distilleries block independent bottlers from listing their whiskies on labels is to ‘teaspoon their casks prior to selling their bottles directly to the independent bottlers. This is simply adding one teaspoon of another grain or single malt whisky to the cask so that independent bottlers cannot legally label the whisky a single malt whisky from the distillery they are selling it to.
5) A few IB whiskies can be a piece of whisky’s past
Independent bottlings are another of the only ways to taste whiskies that aren’t being made any more, specifically from distilleries which no longer exist, such as Port Ellen, Brora, Littlemill, Rosebank and so on. There could be plans to revive a few of these distilleries which have been closed but the whisky that these new distilleries make won’t be quite as great as the ones they were in the past.