Three years is a long time for anyone. But if you’re a whisky distillery manager, it’s a slog. First, there’s a thrill as the inaugural spirit flows from gleaming stills. But then comes the protracted wait for the first expression to roll off the bottling line. That’s before you consider the years of planning permission, breaking ground, construction, and commissioning that’s got you to that point. And every stage along the way will incur vast costs, with no income. Starting a whisky distillery is not for the impatient, or for the hard-up.
There’s no easy way to put a figure on the price of founding a distillery, but it can easily run into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds. Many rely on outside cash injections – crowdfunding sites are popular, while others bid for investor backing. Some turn to producing another spirit in the interim, notably gin. But over the last decade, increasing numbers of distilleries have added a new string to their revenue bow: selling casks.
Historically there have been a number of ways to do this. Some, such as Arran whisky, sold casks outright. Others essentially sold the whisky inside the cask, the future outturn. This is much more common, and how many producers operate today, allowing them to
