First, the people behind it are recognisable. The Artisanal Spirits Company is best known in its guise of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society – the independent whisky bottling club where members provide entertaining tasting notes and names for each release (for example, Beach bonfire blowout or Monet meets Sherlock Holmes) and you have to guess which distillery it’s from (or cheat and look up the codes leaked online). The private client director is James Mackay, who used to run Diageo’s Casks of Distinction programme.

Mackay says he was not concerned about launching a new programme selling casks in 2025, despite economic anxiety and the bad publicity surrounding cask investment.

‘I think the One of One auction showed that, for people with a genuine passion, rare, collectible whisky has not gone out of fashion. What has changed is that interest rates have gone up, so people are thinking a lot more carefully about alternative investments because there’s an income to be earned from other assets,’ he says.

‘That has corrected pricing, which in retrospect clearly got a bit out of hand. And it’s caused the frothier end of the market to go away – the pure speculative investor who was looking to flip it and would be disappointed if they couldn’t make a profit within two, three years.’

The nature of the barrels offered by Artisan Casks does not lend itself to speculation. This is far from your granny being hard-sold new-make spirit from little-known distilleries. These are sought-after and long-aged casks from distilleries that regularly appear in “most collected” lists and are rarely available to buy in-cask. They’re selected from the vaults of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and already identified as stand-outs. They are also priced accordingly – Mackay says, ‘at fair market value’.

Among the casks currently available are a 2004 Bowmore that, right now, is perfectly balanced between smoke, sweetness and spice after 21 years in a second-fill European cask; an easy-drinking Glen Grant that has been in an oloroso cask since 1994; a 1993 Macallan that bears the classic hallmarks of the Speyside distillery style; and a spectacular, rich and meaty 38YO Mortlach (from 1987). Another batch will be released next year.

It is the complete freedom of choice of casks that was part of the lure for Mackay to switch from a cask programme contained in one distillery group (albeit one with an impressive range and access to stock from the ghost distilleries of Brora and Port Ellen).

Mackay – usually modest and low-key – takes a brief moment of pride: ‘Having stayed in touch with clients I’ve known for 10 years or so, the number one reason they’ve remained loyal to me and are now buying Artisan Casks is the range. They say no one else is offering this kind of quality and age in casks from such a wide range of famous names like Laphroaig, Bowmore, Macallan, Mortlach, you name it.’

He immediately deflects the boast: ‘It’s largely because SMWS has been bottling single-cask single malts for the past 40 years. That’s built up trust among the distilleries that SMWS will maintain a level of quality connected to their brands if they sell them a cask.’

Holding these for more years could improve them and raise their value, but that is not guaranteed. What is assured is that they have been and will continue to be nurtured by whisky makers who, in many cases, have been with the Scotch Malt Whisky Society since it was owned by Glenmorangie a decade ago.

There is no set limit, as there is with Casks of Distinction (five years), on how long a cask can continue to mature, but maturation does naturally have its upper limits. ‘The decision of when to bottle is a mutual decision between the owner and the whisky maker,’ says Mackay. ‘There will come a time when you need to bottle it because, otherwise, you may jeopardise the quality of the whisky.’

To that end, Artisan Casks will re-rack (disgorge into a less active cask to avoid overly woody notes creeping in) and even finish a whisky in a specific ex-fortified or wine cask (although be warned – you may come up against the unfiltered opinion of a grizzled Scotsman with strong opinions on the folly of such a choice!).

The information a prospective buyer is sent includes advice about ageing prospects from the start… that Bowmore, for example, ‘should allow plenty of scope for further maturation. We would expect the fruits to grow darker in character and the peat to subtly relax in time.’ Others, in contrast, mention a more conservative timeframe before the ideal bottling moment.

What is more important than making money from these casks, Mackay claims, is making friends and swapping samples of the whiskies. He says, ‘The moment the ink is dry on the contract, clients want to know when they are going to meet the other owners.’

Artisan Casks is already connected to a membership club, where hospitality is second nature. The spiritual home of both Artisan Casks and SMWS is The Vaults in Leith, but experiences for current and prospective cask owners can include visits to distilleries and other treats across Scotland. And this is also a global programme. Recent events have taken place in the Presidential Villa at Raffles Sentosa Resort in Singapore and, in Monaco, aboard the Black Swan yacht, which competed in the 1900 Olympics and was later sailed by Mussolini.

In a way, whisky cask ownership club is a better description for Artisan Casks than cask broker, and certainly more than cask investment company. It’s a private members’ club for whisky lovers, with means to reach the significant level of owning and bottling a cask and sharing it.

‘I would say the club side of it is gaining momentum,’ says Mackay. ‘A lot of the clients are running their own businesses. A lot of them are already members of networks such as the Young Presidents Organization. They’re very sociable people who share a passion for whisky and also love to network. So, it all fits together neatly.’

Cask prices on application. To enquire about Artisan Casks, email artisancasks@artisanal-spirits.com; artisanal-spirits.com 
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