All right, but how did the independent bottlers step in?
Well, at the beginning of the 80s, another economic crisis was looming. So, the big companies’ accountants suddenly said “Look, we’ve got a whole bunch of old Port Ellen casks (for example) in our warehouses. The distillery’s closed. Sell them!” Some bottlers bought them because they were looking for aged single malts to produce premium blends – 18 years old, 21 years old etc. It became quite easy to buy casks, but you had to buy at least 25 or 50 casks at the same time. Q4 – You mean, you can’t buy only one or two casks from United or Allied? Forget it! What the best independent bottlers do is to buy, let’s say 50 casks of Ardbeg. Then the three or four best ones are selected. That’s what we do at Murray McDavid’s. The remaining casks are sold to blenders, or to less “serious” independent bottlers. You know, many independent bottlers don’t even sample the whiskies before they buy the casks. The charming old lady who ran Cadenhead’s in Aberdeen, for instance, used to buy any cask someb
