I spend a fair amount of time looking at labels before I pour anything. Independent bottlers in particular tend to put a lot of information on the bottle, and a little of it is required by law, some of it is voluntary, and some of it is simply the bottler’s own wording. The trouble is that all three look identical in small print.
So while the glass is temporarily empty, I thought I would go through some of the bottles I have reviewed and work out what each line on the label actually tells you – and what it does not.
For the legal side, I am relying mainly on the Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009, together with the Scotch Whisky Product Specification, where it adds relevant details. I will distinguish those rules from labelling conventions and voluntary information supplied by bottlers.
And, as we will eventually discover, this matters: something not specifically defined by the Scotch Whisky Regulations does not necessarily mean that anything goes.
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