Meet The Startup Set To Revolutionize Private Whisky Bottling

Tailored Spirits Co have been recognised for the work they are doing to help individuals with bottling casks of whisky. The innovative new company is co-founded by Tom Costello, Adam Harding and Carl Johnstone. The trio aim to help customers “unlock the true value of rare cask spirits” and their business has recently been honored with one of Scotland’s most prestigious new business awards; Scottish Edge.

According to the Scotch Whisky Association 1.35 billion bottles of scotch whisky are exported each year. Which may leave you wondering why a new company is being awarded for doing something that is already being done prolifically. The answer lies in the strange duality of the whisky cask market.

The legislation around cask ownership means private individuals usually own one, or sometimes up to five casks of whisky. If they want to bottle their own whisky they often find themselves feeling lost while dealing with companies that are more set up to bottle hundreds of casks at a time. The Scottish Edge award received by Tailored Spirits Co. recognises the work Costello and Harding have done to make bottling accessible.

Who Are Tailored Spirits Co.?

“Let’s say you own a whisky cask and you want to bottle it,” Tom Costello, co-founder and creative director of Tailored Spirits Co. explained to me when I met him at the Port Of Leith Distillery in Edinburgh. “You may want to commemorate a personal event with something super special and bespoke, perhaps a daughter’s wedding or son’s 21st birthday? Or you’re a small business and want to create something really bespoke for corporate gifting, celebrate a company anniversary or even launch a new brand. Where do you start? Most bottling companies just don’t have the time or inclination to look at single cask bottling runs. That’s where we come in.”

It’s a difficult task to distill the complexities of bottling spirits into something concise and that a private individual can understand. As a cask broker myself I often get asked about bottling spirits. The answer is always, “yes of course you can, but…!” The “but” is the long bit, because there are all sorts of costs and considerations that the average individual just wouldn’t know they need to think about. Costello’s plan at Tailored Spirits is to turn that “but” into a straight forward “and this is how.”

An Emerging Sector

Private cask ownership is a fraction of the larger whisky industry. That means that for the big players—and even the small independent bottlers who are trying to work to tight margins in an increasingly challenging industry—bottling the odd cask is just not worth the effort. Sometimes it’s not even that they won’t, but that they can’t. The machinery at some larger facilities use more than a single cask worth of whisky just in the pipework of their bottling equipment, which makes single cask runs impossible.

While the number of privately owned casks may not be much in the grand scheme of the inventory of a company like Diageo or the other big spirits producers, it is a growing sector. Running a few conservative numbers around publicly available figures of privately owned casks under management gives us values into the millions for just one cask investment company. That doesn’t account for the people and businesses who don’t own a cask right now, but who would still love to bottle something unique to them.

The end point for all casks of whisky has to be a bottle at some point. That’s fine if you’re an independent bottler, but if you’ve never bottled a spirit before and don’t plan to again, it’s important to have the guidance of someone with experience. Tailored Spirits Co. are embracing that niche and are already excelling.

What Do They Do?

“There has often been a disconnect between all of the moving parts of a whisky bottling project,” Costello says as we chat about how Tailored Spirits came into being. “Where you can find a cask broker, but the service stops with the cask purchase. You can find a designer to produce an idea but not necessarily understand the viability of manufacturing. You can find a bottling hall and they’ll handle the bottling but can’t source a variety of bottle shapes, packaging or design and typically will expect you to handle the logistics of getting everything to them and ensuring it all fits together. And finally, if you’ve been lucky enough to navigate your way through all of this, you’ve then got a pallet of bottles and likely very little avenue to ship them around the world or find buyers for them.

“This is where Tailored Spirits Co. comes in; a complete end to end, white glove partner to take your whisky all the way from the warehouse, to your house.” Tom concludes. It’s a convincing pitch and listening to him I think that whether it’s the right choice for you depends on you and your project. In the same way that some couples might choose to plan their own wedding but plenty use a wedding planner to manage all the parts and ensure their one-off life event is absolutely perfect.

How It Helps The Industry?

It’s pretty clear to me how the setup will help consumers, but changes in the industry over the last 30 years have created issues on both sides of private cask sales.

Many distilleries sold casks to private individuals in the past, either direct to the public or through brokers. While that setup may have worked for them 10, 20, even 30 years ago that’s not always the case now. So when these customers come back asking to bottle a few bottles from a single cask it causes a disruption for the warehouse/distillery. Often the consumer ends up with a negative experience because the setup just isn’t fit for purpose.

Warehouses and distilleries are left with two choices, one of which is to stop dealing with private cask owners. As a cask broker myself I have seen big changes at the distillery run warehouses over the last few years. Springbank used to do partial bottle runs for their customers, now it’s the whole cask or nothing. In 2023 Macallan notified the majority of their historic private cask owners that they had 90 days to move their casks to a different warehouse. Bruichladdich has also updated their storage policy for privately owned casks.

The other option for distilleries is to partner with a business like Tailored Spirits Co. to help make the process easier for everyone.

“We help distilleries by supporting their private cask programs,” said Costello when I asked how they were hoping to help the industry as a whole. “Not every distillery is set up to handle their own bottling in house. If they are then a single run of 250 bottles is not typically the best use of their resources. We are here to support the eventual bottling of their private cask owners and take the projects off of their plates so they can focus on producing more great spirits.”

The Future Of Private Cask Bottlings

It’s clear to see that the team behind Tailored Spirits are also passionate about what they are doing. They have created some really inspiring bottles, but even their more “cost effective” designs have a high-end polished look.

“Fore! was definitely a favorite project so far,” Tom answered when I asked about highlights. “The ability to pull so many elements together to create a truly special experience for the client was something I personally am really proud of.”

It’s an exciting new space, and with all the things Costello and the team at Tailored Spirits already have lined up I’m excited to see what they announce next. For now their services fill an important gap in the industry by aiding consumers to make educated, cost driven decisions when they get to the point of wanting to sell a cask. In my opinion anything that makes the private cask ownership space more transparent and consumer friendly is welcome.