How to read a single barrel label

A single barrel label tells you more than a standard bottling does, because there is more that is specific to tell. Look for four things: the barrel or warehouse number, the proof, the age if one is stated, and the bottle number. Together they identify the exact cask in your hand and distinguish it from every other bottle of the same name.

Here is what each line means and what it is actually telling you.

• The brand and expression. What it would be regardless of which barrel it came from.
• The barrel or warehouse number. Which cask. This is the line that makes the bottle unique.
• The proof, and the ABV beside it. How strong, and whether anything was added.
• The age statement, if there is one. How long it sat in that cask.
• The bottle number. Which bottle out of how many the barrel yielded.

This is the line a standard bottling cannot carry. It identifies the individual cask, and sometimes the warehouse and floor it aged on, which matters more than it sounds: the same whiskey ageing on a hot upper floor and a cool lower one comes out differently.

Two bottles of the same expression with different barrel numbers are two different whiskeys. When the barrel is empty that number is finished, which is why a pick you liked cannot simply be reordered.

In the United States proof is exactly twice the alcohol by volume. 100 proof is 50% ABV. Both figures usually appear on the label, saying the same thing twice.

The useful detail is whether the number is round. A whiskey bottled at 80, 90 or 100 proof was proofed down with water to hit that figure. A whiskey bottled at 114.6 was not. An uneven proof is the clearest signal on the label that you are holding a barrel-strength bottling, and it is worth looking for before any of the marketing language.

• Barrel strength or cask strength: bottled at or near the strength the cask reached, usually 110 to 140 proof.
• Bottled-in-bond: exactly 100 proof, under a federal standard that also governs age and origin.
• Hazmat: 140 proof or above, which is the limit for carrying a bottle on a commercial flight. Shop hazmat bottles.

An age statement refers to the youngest whiskey in the bottle. On a blended bottling that is a meaningful constraint. On a single barrel there is only one whiskey in the bottle, so the number is simply how long that cask sat.

No age statement does not mean young whiskey. It does mean the distillery decided not to tell you, and on a single barrel that is worth noticing, because the information exists.

Many single barrels are numbered by bottle: 47 of 192, say. That second figure is the yield of the whole cask, and it is the most honest scarcity signal on the label. A barrel yielding under 150 bottles is either small, old, or both, because a cask loses volume every year it sits.

These get used interchangeably on shelf tags and they mean different things:

• Single barrel: one cask, bottled on its own.
• Small batch: a limited number of casks blended together. Not legally defined, so the number varies enormously between brands.
• Single malt: one distillery, 100% malted barley. Usually blended across many casks. A single malt can also be single cask, and most are not.

When a bottling is tied to a particular shop, the label usually says so, along with the shop name. The barrel number and proof still do the real work of identifying it. Browse our single barrel picks.