Original Distillery Bottling (OB)

Whisky which is bottled directly for the producing distillery and not sold on to private individuals or independent bottling companies for them to bottle is known as an 'OB' or Original Distillery Bottling.

Many distilleries have set ages for bottling whisky which they believe best highlight their whisky's characteristics, so they bottle and sell the whisky at these ages. For example Ardbeg 10y, Laphroaig 10y.

Independent Bottling (IB)

Distilleries also sell casks to other companies for them to bottle and sell, or even to private indiviuals or clubs and societies. Once bottled these offerings are known as IBs or Independent Bottlings. Some of the more well known Independent Bottlers include Gordon & MacPhail (G&M), Signatory, Douglas Laing, Murray McDavid and Hart Brother's just to name a few.

Single Malt Whisky

Single Malt whisky basically means the product of just one distillery', so everything in that particular bottle is the output of just one distillery, usually named on the label. For example; The Glenlivet Single Malt means all the whisky in that bottle was produced by The Glenlivet Distillery.

Single Cask Whisky

Single Cask whisky means that not only is it the product of one distillery, but also from only one specific cask from that distillery. By their very nature single cask bottlings are limited editions (limited to the number of bottles from the one cask!) and will often have the individual cask number and number of bottles detailed on the label. They may also include the distillation and bottling dates.

Single Grain Whisky

Whereas Malt whisky is produced from only malted barley, grain whisky may be produced from a mix of malted barley, unmalted barley, wheat and corn. Grain whisky is often very smooth and very little tends to find its way into bottlings of grain whisky as most of the production forms the basis of blended whisky.

Blended / Vatted Whisky

It used to be so easy; Blended whisky was a mixture or 'blend' of grain and malt whiskies, whereas vatted whisky was a mixture or 'vatting' of only malt whiskies. But alas, the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) has now redefined every 'mix' to be called blended whisky so we have Blended Scotch whisky, blended grain whisky and blended malt whisky.

NO AGE STATEMENT (NAS)

An NAS scotch is a whisky which doesn’t bear the age on the bottle. By Scottish law, a Scotch whisky can only state the youngest whisky present in the bottle. For example, a bottle could contain 12 year-old, 8 year-old and 3 year-old whisky, but it would only be classified as a ‘3 year-old’ Scotch.

The choice of stating or omitting the age of a Scotch dates back to at least the nineteen century. While some blenders in the early twentieth century used an ‘average age’ statement, this has long since been illegal.