Whether you’re after something to drink yourself, for work, an event, or as a side project, anyone can arrange to have a cask of whisky bottled—although the actual bottling has to be done by a proper facility. But what do you actually need to do, know and understand in order to take a whisky from cask to glass?
Whether it’s bottling a £200,000 cask of Macallan, or the £10,000 project of passion you’ve always dreamed of, there are four main areas you need to know about when bottling a cask, and we’ll run through each of them.
Send Me The 2026 Cask Buying Guide
"*" indicates required fields
If you have a cask you’d like to bottle, or are looking for a cask to bottle as a personal or business project, then please get in touch. You can use the form below or email [email protected] with a bit of information about what you are looking for.
Step one: Checking Your Budget
Before you get into any of the fun (choosing a whisky or design) decisions you need to ensure that you understand the costs involved in bottling a cask of whisky. A basic list of costs include:
a. The cask of whisky itself
b. VAT on the purchase price (currently 20%)
c. UK Duty +VAT charged per litre of alcohol
d. Dry goods (labels, capsules, boxes etc.)
e. Designs
f. Bottling facilities
f. Transport—moving the cask to the bottling facility and shipping the filled bottles to you/storage.
As a Spear’s 500 Top Recommended Whisky Advisor Mark Littler is a perfectly positioned to provide expert advice on all stages of buying, owning and selling casks of scotch whisky.
As Featured In:
Even if you own a cask of whisky already, the impact of b and c on the total cost of bottling can be significant. If you’re looking to buy a cask to bottle then the impact of taxes on your total budget is even more important, especially as a mature cask ready to be bottled is likely to come at a premium.
“The biggest surprise for a lot of people looking to bottle a cask of whisky is the taxes due when the whisky comes out of duty suspense and into glass,” explains Mark Littler, expert whisky broker and Spears500 recommended advisor. “If you come to me and say you’ve got £90,000 to spend on a cask of Springbank you want to bottle, that’s great, but the first thing I’m going to establish is whether that’s the budget for the whole project or what you’re expecting to pay for the cask alone, because one scenario works and the other doesn’t.”
To give a bit more context I’ve added a few examples below. So, for a cask at 50% ABV and 100 litres of alcohol, depending on your purchase price a the cost of b and c would be:
- Bought at £2,000: VAT on the purchase price at £400 + Duty and VAT on the LA at £3,796.80, b+c = £4,196.80
- Bought at £10,000: VAT on the purchase price at £2,000 + Duty and VAT on the LA at £3,796.80, b+c = £5,796.80
- Bought at £200,000: VAT on the purchase price at £40,000 + Duty and VAT on the LA at £3,796.80, b+c = £43,796.80
Remember, those figures are just for the taxes, that’s before you’ve added in any of the other costs. If you’d like to understand more about bottling costs then I’d suggest exploring our Cask Calculator. That will show you how purchase price and ABV can impact the final per bottle cost.
Step Two: Aims & Requirements
Once you’ve checked that you know where your budget is going, the next step in a bottling project is establishing what you’d like to achieve and why.
Your aims with bottling matter because they determine what is going to be suitable and what cost implications that has.
For example, if you’re after something for a wedding, you may prefer certain vintages, need a certain number of bottles and have a strict time limit, yet be more flexible on bottle size.
If you’re a business after corporate gifting then the presentation or age of the whisky may be as important as the specific distillery name.
If you require a high number of bottles then that means a bigger cask. But if you’re flexible on bottling strength then you can legally add Scottish water to reduce the whisky’s strength down to anything above 40% to get more bottles from the same volume of liquid.
“Let’s say you want a cask of Macallan, that limits the ages available, but there are still a broad range of costs for Macallan casks depending on the cask type, the fill levels, the ABV etc.,” explained Littler. “If you can work with a broker/bottler to establish what you want from the casks then that’s going to help narrow down the most suitable options.”
These are things that you’ll need to consider as part of your bottling project:
- If you don’t already own a cask, do you have a preference on the whisky itself; the distillery, cask type, age, vintage etc.?
- How many bottles do you want?
- What size bottle?
- Do you want cask strength or would you prefer something lower?
- Do you have presentation preferences in terms of glass/capsule style? If so, do you have a source already?
- Do you have a label design, has it been approved?
Step Three: Picking A Cask
If you already own a cask of whisky that you want to bottle then you can obviously skip this step.
But if you are looking for something to bottle then once you’ve set your budget and requirements, this is when you can start looking at whiskies.
The initial offering will be filtered down based on your budget and requirements (as in the size, style and strength etc, of whisky you require). Your initial shortlist will be likely based on expert tasting notes and sample pictures. Samples are more likely to come at the final stage and may require a deposit.
You’ll have to purchase the cask and get it transferred into your name (usually via a delivery order) in order to arrange for it to be bottled. Which brings us to the final step.
Step Four: Selecting Partners
This step is more of a full additional flight of stairs to be honest. Depending on your requirements and how you manage the bottling process, you will likely need to work with several additional partners during the bottling process. Familiarising yourself with all these relationships will help you understand what can go wrong and cause delays.
A warehouse—if you don’t have an account at a warehouse already you’ll need one in order to take ownership of a cask. You may want to consider warehouse location and facilities. For example, can the warehouse bottle on site or will you need to move the cask again?
Bottling facilities—not all bottling facilities will be able to work with single cask bottling projects so it’s important that you and the bottling location understand your requirements.
Designers—If your bottle requires something more personal than a sample label then you will need to look at getting a label designed—similar if you want a box or carton. While you can do this yourself there are certain requirements set by the Scotch Whisky Association as to what needs to be included on a scotch label, so working with someone that has experience with scotch labels can be beneficial.
Printers—custom labels and boxes will need to be printed/created and this often needs to be done through specialist printers.
Dry goods—you will need to decide on things like your bottle, capsules, closures etc., a bottling facility may be able to offer you a standard tall round bottle and closure, but more custom designs will need to be sourced and shipped to the facility.
Shipping—if you’re moving your cask to a different warehouse or bottling facility you’ll need to work with a specialist company that can transport goods in duty suspense. Once your bottles have been filled you’ll also need to arrange shipping to you/your storage/shop location.
Sales—if your plan is to sell the bottles you will either need to get the relevant licences to sell alcohol, or work with someone who does.
A well designed label can elevate even a simple bottle and make a whisky your own.
Enjoy Your Whisky
Once you have everything arranged, designed, shipped where it’s supposed to be, and whisky is finally filled into glass, it’s time to enjoy the fruits of your labour; your whisky.
In reality each of these steps tend to run somewhat interchangeably (and usually with minor/major disruptions or delays). If your plan is to start bottling your own casks on a regular basis then getting to grips with the process is important. However, whether you’re a private individual only planning to do this once, or a budding independent bottler, getting the right assistance can really help.
Whether it’s simply sourcing a cask that matches your requirements, or working with you to manage the bottling process from cask to glass, Mark Littler Ltd can help. Please do get in touch by emailing [email protected]. Or alternatively book in for an initial consultation call with Mark here.
