Message in a bottle

A whisky’s journey always starts at a distillery, where the base of our spirit is expertly crafted by their distillers. We’ve now bottled from over 160 different distilleries, with each one matching up to the Society’s high standards.

Before working with a distillery, the Whisky Team will thoroughly interrogate their processes while also making an effort to visit as many in person as possible. Only once we understand the inner workings of a distillery can we be sure their practices match the Society’s standards and proceed to fill their new-make spirit into our specially selected casks.

Though we do occasionally buy casks of mature whisky from a distillery, it’s becoming increasingly rarer. While this can be helpful at times, or the only way to acquire certain whisky profiles, when it comes to flavour we like to have full control from the very beginning. When filling casks at distilleries or at our own bond, we do so into a variety of cask types that will give us a diverse range of spirit to choose from in future years. It’s useful to think at least 10 years ahead, but realistically much further into the future, to establish what a good balance will look like.

After this, comes the long slumber. This part of the voyage you might think is just plain sailing, and there certainly is a lot of waiting. But the complexity of this chapter is often completely overlooked. What warehouse is the cask in? How humid is the air? How hot is it? Are the casks lying down on racks? Are they stacked up on pallets? Which part of the warehouse are they in? How are the new fillings evolving? How are the new cask types evolving? All these questions need answered, and over time, will slowly direct our whiskies’ journey. There is in fact so much to keep track of, that I have postulated it causes the team to age faster than the casks entrusted into their care.

To help collect these answers, and to look after the casks, we work with extremely diligent and dedicated warehouse crews, who are in many ways unsung heroes of the whisky industry. Maturation is not a boring part of a whisky’s journey; it is the journey. So much rests on this process; what appears as a tedious list of tasks on paper turns into a personal odyssey. Each parameter we monitor quietly moulds the whisky’s character, crafting a tale our members will later decipher in their glasses.  

The scrutiny and information accumulated during the maturation process helps us pick out which whiskies to sample from our near 20,000 cask inventory. Once the wave of samples hits our desk, usually landing in their dozens, comes the first official part of sensory quality control. Each sample is given a summary nosing and anything deemed ‘not quite ready’ is set aside for a more technical assessment by the Whisky Team. All other samples are gathered and prepared for the next step in our journey.

The respite for these samples is brief, as it’s time for our spirit to enter the most iconic chapter of our story: the Tasting Panel. A pillar of the Society since its very inception, this group of around 30 members gather in smaller sessions, four to five strong, to assess every Society bottling. These flavour experts reflect a diverse range of ages, professions and cultural backgrounds, mirroring the variety of tastes our global membership has. For a sample to be bottled the Panel must find it worthy, if not it’s back to the drawing board.

If a whisky passes the Panel’s scrutiny, the panellist chairing the session gathers the Notes of fellow tasters and brings the liquid to life through creative Tasting Notes and a title befitting the whisky’s unmistakeable style. A fun fact about the panellists chairing these sessions is that they’re all external. For them, there is no pressure to bottle any specific cask, it’s purely about quality.

Having passed every level of scrutiny, the liquid has now earned its right to be bottled, the wait is over. Finally, it’s tipping time! Our bottling crew empties the cask; its volume is measured, it’s ABV recorded, and its label fitted. Where a cask’s journey ends, a bottle’s has just begun. Prepared for their migration, it’s time for these bottles to be sent across the globe, or even to your own home. With the whisky now ready, the Outturn team can finally look at what has become available and bring these releases to our members.

So, take heart, for each time you feel like your ability to choose is beached by the tide of bottles in the Outturn, take confidence in the journey every Society bottle has embarked on; the scrutiny it was subjected to, the trials it has passed, and the patience it has taken to finally deliver these flavours to you. When you finally select a bottle, pull out the cork without regret, pour your dram without haste, and from your glass sip it slower still, so that you might better appreciate the message within.