A collector's email
A collector emails a photo of bottle 143 of a single cask release from years ago. They want to know about the cask, when it was filled, what it held before, and whether you have any others from the same cask. Another person asks whether a bottle they were offered at auction is genuine. The bottling run sheet has the cask number and total bottles, but the link to the fill record, the sampling notes and who bought which bottle numbers is not joined up.
Why provenance is hard to reconstruct
Bottle numbers are applied at bottling, cask details are in the warehouse records, and sales are in the webshop or shop till. Each is kept by a different team for its own purpose. For small batch releases that vat several casks, the list of casks is on the run sheet or the blender's notes. Linking any of this to a buyer is rarely done at all.
- Bottle number ranges are recorded on paper run sheets.
- Cask details are in separate warehouse and fill records.
- Vatted releases list casks in blender's notes.
- Sales records do not note which bottle number went to whom.
- Old releases have gaps that nobody can fill.
What it costs
Collectors and fans, often your most loyal customers, get a vague answer. Questions about suspected counterfeits cannot be answered with confidence. Future releases lose a storytelling asset, because the history of each cask is hard to show. And staff time goes on digging through archives each time a question arrives.
Whether a particular bottle is genuine can involve much more than records, and we do not advise on that. We make the records you hold quick to search.
Linking each bottle to its casks
- Each bottling run records the product, bottle number range if numbered, and the casks or tanks that supplied it, from your cask register.
- Each cask record already holds its fill, wood, sampling and movement history, so the run inherits it.
- For releases sold individually, bottle numbers are recorded against webshop orders or shop sales where you choose to, by scanning the bottle at packing.
- A provenance search takes a product and bottle number and returns the run, casks, fill details and history, and the sale if recorded.
- A reverse search on a cask lists every run and bottle range that came from it.
- A simple public page, if you want one, lets owners enter a bottle number and see approved release details.
| Question | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Which cask did bottle 143 come from? | Find the run sheet | Search by number |
| When was that cask filled? | Warehouse archive | On the cask record |
| Which bottles came from this cask? | Manual list | Reverse search |
| Who bought bottle 143? | Unknown | Recorded where you choose |
| Is this number within the release? | Check the run sheet | Instant check |
Provenance on request
Collectors' questions are answered from a complete record. Staff can confirm whether a number was in a release. Marketing can show a release's cask history accurately. And every future release builds its provenance as it is bottled, instead of relying on someone to reconstruct it later.
Older releases can be filled in gradually from archives, with any gaps honestly marked rather than guessed.
Could you answer that collector?
- Bottle numbers are recorded on paper run sheets.
- Cask histories are not linked to bottling runs.
- You cannot say which numbers went to which buyers.
- Provenance questions take hours to answer.
- Suspected fakes are hard to check against your records.