Independant Bottlers

Yes, that's what they do. That is also what everyone else from private individuals to individual stores, to store chains, to drinking clubs do: they visit a distillery, taste some casks offered to them, then buy the cask/barrel and have the whole cask bottled for them. They then own all of the bottles and decide what to do with them, i.e. to whom to sell or give them.

@Victor one day...

I believe some of the bottlers, like G&M, buy newmake spirit and do their own maturing. I read somewhere that G&M had many casks maturing in their warehouses. I believe that they may even switch the spirit into better casks if necessary but have no hard evidence.

...and the Independent Bottlers buy not only single casks for bottling, but also multiple casks which they themselves may vat together to establish a whisky product.

If you like indie bottlings, check out That Boutiquey Whisky Company. They make some amazing juice at very reasonable prices

Talk about a dream job!

@NNWhisky , is their stuff really consistently great? I had the impression their releases were more of the "interesting & unusual odds and ends" variety, rather than "best quality we could find" variety. (I've never had one.)

My experience with independent bottlers has been consistently positive. I find they are often cheaper for aged whisky than the original distiller and the quality is great. Cadenhead. G & M. Good times.

@nooch I agree. Every IB I've had has been good, with the one exception of a wine barrel–aged Bowmore from Murray McDavid. (Yes, I should have known it would be bad based just on that info!)

I find the independent bottlings are concistently more interesting than the official bottlings, but still fall along a spectrum: most are less quality than I had hoped for, some meet expectations, and very few exceed expectations. Still, if I could only have IBs or OBs, I'd choose IBs.

@Ol_Jas Sorry, I thought I had replied to this long ago! Consistency is certainly not their aim, as is the case with many indie bottlers who only buy limited stocks. It can be a bit of a gamble if you buy a bottle without having tried the contents first. Festivals that sell what they show are the best places to try before you buy in my experience (I don't have an easily accessible specialist)

a lot of the trade in casks is handled by whisky brokers and from what i know you have to be very well connected to get access to the best casks