Our Process

We work with some of the best cooperages in Scotland and the US, along with some of Spain’s most illustrious bodegas to acquire steady supplies of top quality ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Links forged through decades of collaboration mean we can be confident of the casks’ quality and be sure that they will mature our whiskies properly over the years to come. The casks are shipped to Scotland and then sent to the various distilleries we work with to be filled with new-make spirit.

Relationships built up over our years in the whisky business, particularly by our founder Stewart Hunter Laing, mean that we are in the privileged position of being able to maintain filling contracts with some of Scotland’s very finest distilleries. This policy of filling our own casks with new spirit gives an additional element of quality control and consistency, as well as allowing continuity of supply for both our blended whiskies and our single cask bottlings.

Once filled, our casks are left to age in the best conditions possible, either at the distilleries in question or at our own warehouses in Glasgow. The cool, damp climate of the west of Scotland lends itself particularly well to the maturation of whisky.

Our Master Blender regularly checks our stocks so that he is completely familiar with all of them as they mature and evolve. A large proportion of our output is blended whisky which involves nosing each Malt and Grain individually and sending casks in batches according to a particular recipe, such as that for our House of Peers blend, to be bottled.

At the same time, we note any barrel, hogshead or sherry butt that is of particularly high quality – bearing in mind that every cask matures slightly differently – and keep these aside, to be considered for bottling under one of our single cask brands.

The Hunter Laing tasting panel consists of Stewart, our Master Blender Tom Aitken, Scott and Andrew. Together they review samples of casks which have been kept aside and decide whether they do indeed exhibit qualities which justify a single cask bottling, and if so whether to bottle the whisky at 46% alcohol (Hepburn’s Choice), 50% alcohol (Old Malt Cask) or cask strength (First Editions, Old and Rare, Sovereign). The panel also then writes the tasting notes which appear on the bottles’ labels or accompanying certificates.

Occasionally the decision is made to re-rack the whisky into a different type of cask, or simply to leave it to mature for a few more years.

Casks which are to be bottled are then called forward to our bottling hall, Premier Bond, then carefully disgorged (emptied), reduced in alcohol if necessary by the gradual addition of pure water, then bottled and labelled entirely by hand. It is important to state that none of our single cask bottlings is ever artificially coloured or subjected to the process of chill-filtration.

After a whisky is bottled its details will be added to our new product catalogue which is regularly sent out to our trusted distributors across the globe. At this point we can anticipate receiving enthusiastic orders from places as far-flung as British Columbia and New Zealand, before the whisky is shipped and in days, weeks or months being enjoyed by connoisseurs.