Rare and limited

Rare is an overused word in this trade, so it is worth saying what we mean by it. A bottle earns the label here for one of three reasons.

It came from a limited run, which means the distillery made a set number and stopped. It came from a distillery that has closed, so no more will ever be made. Or it is an age or strength that has been withdrawn from sale.

What it never means is that a bottle is simply expensive, or hard to find in one particular shop this week.

Some terms you will meet on these pages. Cask strength means the spirit went into the bottle at the strength it left the barrel, with no water added, usually 50% to 65% ABV rather than the normal 40%. NAS stands for no age statement, which means the label does not say how long it aged, usually because it blends several ages together. Single barrel means every bottle in that run came from one named barrel, so it will taste slightly different from the next barrel along.

Because these bottles cannot be replaced, we check them harder. We buy through the trade only, never the resale market. Fill level, seal, capsule and label are checked and photographed. If anything looks wrong, the bottle does not get listed. Read more about how we source.