The Springbank Cage Bottles represent something quite unique in today’s market; a bottle that is the closest you’ll get to something designed to be purely for drinking. Springbank itself is an unusual distillery in that it is still family owned despite being almost 200 years old and one of the most valuable single malts on the market.
You may have seen the Cage bottles and wondered what they are. On first encounter they don’t look like much at all. That is the point. They’re designed for people who are already Springbank super fans, so it’s what’s inside that is important. I contacted Springbank to find out more about this elusive series. David Allen Director of Sales & Marketing at Springbank Distillers shared his insights.
The Origins Of The Springbank Cage Bottlings?
The first thing you need to know about the Cage Bottles, is that is not their name. “The term ‘cage bottling’ was not an official term, but was coined by Springbank enthusiasts,” explained David Allen when I asked about the origins of the unusual series.
The term comes from where they were stored. “The cage bottlings were originally introduced as individual duty paid samples, which were simply kept in a secure shelf area in our Cadenhead Whisky shop, long before we had a distillery shop.”
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This was back in 2011 when the whisky market was a niche for super fans. For perspective in 2011 you could buy a Springbank 50 year old Millennium Decanter for less than $3,000 (including hammer). Today the same bottles would set you back $15,600. But back then if you’d mentioned flipping a bottle of scotch for thousands of dollars you probably would have been laughed out of the distillery/bar etc.
The Iconic Sample Label
If you’ve not come across them before the cage bottles are eye-catching in a counter intuitive way. The bottles are labeled with a plain white square on a standard tall round bottle. The details for each bottle are hand written on the label. They resemble a 70cl cask sample… because that’s exactly what they are.
“The early duty paid samples were just that; samples, so were labeled accordingly. This design has been used ever since with no demand from our customers for anything different and no desire from us to try and dress the bottles up any differently. The labels give the required information on cask type etc and then it’s up to the customer to open it and discover the whisky inside.”
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An Ethos Of Discovery
Discovering a new side of Springbank seems to be the ethos for the cage bottlings. They are the opposite of every bottle of whisky you see on a shelf for sale, because they were never designed to compete for retail attention.
“They were to offer those who made the long journey to Campbeltown something unique that could only be purchased from us,” Allen explains.
It seems like a fair exchange given how difficult it is to get to—the 600 mile drive from Londown to Campbelltown would be over 10 hours, if you didn’t stop! These bottles were the reward for Springbank super fans who were committed enough to make the journey. The theory presumably being that anyone keen enough to visit would welcome something that was at once pure Springbank, but something a bit different to the normal core range.
“They used to be single bottle samples from casks, with the same cask returned to every so often. Now given the significant demand, whole casks will be bottled to keep the ‘cage’ topped up.”
Allen explained that the whisky is selected because they offer something a bit different. “Our Production team, headed by Findlay Ross, will select casks which they think offer something different to our standard core range. Today there are usually around 8 or 9 different whiskies/cask choices in the cage at any one time.”
Immortalized In the Springbank Ledger
Buying a cage bottle direct from the distillery also adds your name to the ledger Allen explains, “There are ledgers with handwritten entries of every ‘cage bottle’ sold. There may have been a period after covid when there was no ledger input due to social distancing etc, but there will be a written record of most bottles sold.”
As for how many have been sold, that’s something the nature of a handwritten record makes difficult to estimate. “Without going through records, I don’t have an accurate estimate of bottles sold, but it will be comfortably into the thousands.”
Thousands is still a fairly limited edition for a whisky from a distillery whose limited editions often run to the thousands of dollars on the secondary market.
If you are tempted to make the pilgrimage yourself then Allen was kind enough to share some typical prices for the options:
- Under 11 years old: $87 (£65)
- 12 to 15 years old: $110 (£80)
- 16 to 17 years old: $135 (£100)
Admittedly, getting to Campbelltown may take the gross price up. But given these often go for three to four figures on the secondary market, the trip for Springbank fans surely adds more value than just clicking a button and having it delivered to you.
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