As people explore single malt Scotch, eventually they will stumble upon a bottle that claims to be from a familiar distillery but with a rather generic label. Skepticism sets in immediately and questions of whether or not this is legal spring to mind.
Not only are they legitimate, they are an interesting phenomenon known as Independent Bottling or "IB" for short. It's counterpart is "OB" and stands for Owner's/Official/Original Bottling depending on who you talk to. As near as I can tell, the IB phenomenon is exclusive to Scotch. This is fostered by the blended Scotch industry who rely on distilleries to sell whole casks to them so they can be mixed and added to their famous blends. Independent bottlers then have access to distillery stock that they can then age and then sell.
Many IBs are single cask expressions, which is rare within OBs. Bear in mind that "single malt" merely means it's a malted whisky from a single distillery. The distilleries will blend various casks from (most often) different ages and then put the youngest age on the bottle. The Macallan is/was known for only selling whisky that was of the age on the bottle, though I'm not sure if they're still doing that. Regardless even The Macallan is/was blending various casks together in order to maintain a certain level of consistency.
The IBs lack the volume of stocks to allow such things so most will bottle as a single cask and market it as two moments in time: The day it was distilled and the day it was bottled. This adds another layer of mystique since there's a chance someone will come across a day or date with meaning in their lives and buy the bottle on the spot.
One more favor for the IBs is that they corner the market on bottles from closed distilleries. You cannot get an OB of St. Magdalene because they turned it into flats after ceasing production in 1983. Rosebank is still around, but Diageo has no plans to start it back up again. But you can still get both of these in IBs, though with every bottling the price goes up. A classic case of supply and demand.
But how do they taste? It's hard to claim OBs are better or worse than IBs. OBs are more consistent, while IBs can show off some characters of a distillery that might be masked by a master blender. So it's better to say that IBs are just a bit different. That difference does suggest that it's good to try an IB of one of your favorite Scotches at least to see what the blender is working with. It might be worth it to try an IB of a distillery that you don't like and you might find that the IB is better than the OB from your perspective.
Not only are they legitimate, they are an interesting phenomenon known as Independent Bottling or "IB" for short. It's counterpart is "OB" and stands for Owner's/Official/Original Bottling depending on who you talk to. As near as I can tell, the IB phenomenon is exclusive to Scotch. This is fostered by the blended Scotch industry who rely on distilleries to sell whole casks to them so they can be mixed and added to their famous blends. Independent bottlers then have access to distillery stock that they can then age and then sell.
Many IBs are single cask expressions, which is rare within OBs. Bear in mind that "single malt" merely means it's a malted whisky from a single distillery. The distilleries will blend various casks from (most often) different ages and then put the youngest age on the bottle. The Macallan is/was known for only selling whisky that was of the age on the bottle, though I'm not sure if they're still doing that. Regardless even The Macallan is/was blending various casks together in order to maintain a certain level of consistency.
The IBs lack the volume of stocks to allow such things so most will bottle as a single cask and market it as two moments in time: The day it was distilled and the day it was bottled. This adds another layer of mystique since there's a chance someone will come across a day or date with meaning in their lives and buy the bottle on the spot.
One more favor for the IBs is that they corner the market on bottles from closed distilleries. You cannot get an OB of St. Magdalene because they turned it into flats after ceasing production in 1983. Rosebank is still around, but Diageo has no plans to start it back up again. But you can still get both of these in IBs, though with every bottling the price goes up. A classic case of supply and demand.
But how do they taste? It's hard to claim OBs are better or worse than IBs. OBs are more consistent, while IBs can show off some characters of a distillery that might be masked by a master blender. So it's better to say that IBs are just a bit different. That difference does suggest that it's good to try an IB of one of your favorite Scotches at least to see what the blender is working with. It might be worth it to try an IB of a distillery that you don't like and you might find that the IB is better than the OB from your perspective.