Working distilleries you have heard of
The list we send you is working Highland and Speyside distilleries you will recognise: real fill dates, real ages, paperwork we can prove.
A barrel of Scotch, with your name on it.
A wooden barrel of new-make spirit, sat in a Scottish bonded warehouse, slowly turning into Scotch. We source the cask, register it in your name, and sort the paperwork.
The list we send you is working Highland and Speyside distilleries you will recognise: real fill dates, real ages, paperwork we can prove.
Every cask sits in a bonded warehouse in Scotland. The same kind of warehouse the distilleries themselves use. Bonded means the duty has not yet been paid, and HMRC keeps tabs on the stock.
One named cask, with a serial number stencilled on the end and your name on the delivery order. The warehouse confirms ownership in writing on request, independent of us. If you wanted to, you could drive there and stand next to it.
No Capital Gains Tax on the gain. HMRC uses the same rule it applies to vintage cars: a maturing cask is a “wasting asset”, and the profit when you sell is yours. Not a loophole, just a long-standing rule for assets with a finite life. We’ll walk you and your accountant through it whenever you’re ready.
Tax rules can change and how they apply depends on your personal circumstances. We are happy to walk through this with you.
The cask itself is a wooden barrel. Usually a refill bourbon hogshead or a sherry butt, holding 200 to 500 litres of new-make spirit. Distilleries make new-make. Time and oak make Scotch. Each cask has a unique number stencilled on the end, and that number sits on a delivery order in your name.
Two things happen, very slowly, in a Scottish bonded warehouse. The supply only shrinks. The demand only climbs. That’s the whole pitch.
Roughly two per cent of the liquid in every cask evaporates each year. So a cask filled in 2005 is, today, physically smaller than it was. Stock that was bottled in the 1990s is gone. Stock bottled this year cannot be replaced for at least eight years.
Several of the famous distilleries closed decades ago. Brora, Port Ellen, Rosebank, Convalmore. None of them are making new spirit, and several have been mothballed for nearly forty years. The supply of mature whisky from those names can only go in one direction.
The Scotch Whisky Association reports £5.4bn of Scotch exports in 2024, with bottles leaving the country at the rate of forty-four a second. You can see why a 1995 hogshead from a working Highland distillery is the kind of thing people quietly hold on to.
Forty-eight pages, no jargon. We send the PDF by email, no follow-up call unless you ask for one.
We send you a short list of available casks. Distillery, age, cask type, fill date, price, projected yield in bottles. You pick one. We hold it for fourteen days while you make up your mind.
We register the cask in your name with the warehouse, take care of insurance, and send you a clean statement twice a year. The cask sits and ages. Visit it twice a year if you want, on us.
When you are ready, we help you sell. Either back to us, or to a private buyer or independent bottler. Or, if you would rather, we organise a bottling run and you end up with several hundred bottles of single malt in your name.
Every cask sits in a Scottish bonded warehouse. The same kind of warehouse the distilleries themselves use. We pay the storage. We pay the insurance. We pay for the rotation work (every cask gets sampled and topped up over the years). For the first twelve months all of that is on us. After that, a flat annual fee, shown up front before you commit. You can visit the warehouse, on us, twice a year. We will arrange the time, drive you there, and walk you to the cask with your name on it.
When you decide to sell, you have three routes. We talk you through all of them and we do not tell you which one to pick. Whichever you choose, we handle the paperwork.
We make a buyback offer based on the current market for casks of that distillery and age. Money usually arrives within fourteen days. The simplest route, and most customers take it.
We have a vetted list of buyers and bottlers. We introduce you, agree the price, handle the legal paperwork. Slower (typically four to eight weeks) but often achieves a higher price.
Your cask, your bottling run. We organise an independent bottler to do the work. At the end you own roughly 250 to 700 bottles of single malt with a label of your choosing.
Held between five and twenty-one years. The full table’s below: what was bought, how long it sat, what the customer walked away with. Every cask sale on the books, in order.
Returns shown are after fees, before any tax (most casks qualify for the wasting-asset rule and pay zero CGT). Customer names withheld for privacy. Past results are not a guide to future ones.
Every customer below has held an actual cask, in their actual name, in an actual Scottish warehouse. Names changed for privacy, the rest of it is theirs.
“I had never been into a bonded warehouse in my life. They drove me up to Speyside, walked me along to the cask with my name stencilled on the end of it, and let me draw a sample. It made it real.”
“I treat it like a savings bond I happen to find interesting. Put £5,000 in three years ago, get a clean statement twice a year. That is about it, really.”
“I asked about Capital Gains Tax three times. Got the same straightforward answer all three times. That mattered to me. My accountant agreed.”
“Sold the cask to an independent bottler last spring. Money in the account in five weeks, no quibbles. Better than I had budgeted for.”
The cask is still yours. The warehouse is independent of the distillery, so even if a distillery is mothballed (or goes the way of Brora or Port Ellen), the cask sits where it was. Any market for “closed-distillery” stock tends to push the value up rather than down.
Yes. You appoint an independent bottler (or use one we recommend), pick a label, agree a strength, and the bottling happens at a licensed plant. You end up with several hundred bottles in your name, with whatever label you want on them.
A cask loses roughly two per cent of its volume per year to evaporation. The angels' share. It is one of the reasons older casks are rarer (and dearer) per litre. Your statement shows the current volume on every reading.
Whisky cask ownership in the UK is currently outside the FCA’s remit, because what you buy is a physical asset, not a financial product. We treat that with care: clear paperwork, bonded warehouse, named cask, plain English. Our role is to help you own a thing, then help you sell it. Personal investment advice belongs with an IFA.
Yes. Twice a year, on us, you can come to the warehouse, see the cask and draw a sample. We arrange the time, drive you there, and walk you to it. It is a good day out.
A flat annual fee, shown in writing before you commit. Typical range £40 to £80 per cask per year, including insurance and the rotation work. One number, one line item, the same every year.
If you would rather skip the guide and ask a real person, book a quick call. We answer the questions, you decide what to do next.
Then sell it back to us, to a private bottler, or bottle it yourself with your initials on the label. The decision is yours every step of the way. We just keep it safe in bond and tell you what it’s worth, whenever you ask.