Independent Bottlers

Today, independent bottlers have a firm place in the range of whisky bottlings. We tell you how these bottlers came into being, which are the most important and what their future might look like.

The Independent Bottlers

View of a bar with Douglas Laing bottles

The UAs - the Independent Bottlers - bottle single malts independently of the producing distillery under their own name. The name of the bottler is more prominent than the name of the whisky on the bottle.

The Story

Logo of the G&M Iron Gate

It started with Gordon & MacPhail around 1825, even before the first distilleries bottled whisky under their own name.

Independent Whisky Bottlers in Scotland

A retail shop from G&M

The big ones include Gordon & MacPhail, Signatory Vintage, Douglas Laing and Ian MacLeod, but there are countless small ones.