How To Date Your Bottles Of Whisky: The Ultimate Guide 

Very interesting as usual, I keep sharing your videos on a french FB group

This is my area of study and expertise funnily enough. My speciality is vintage bottles including old blends, bourbons and different market releases. I wrote an article for our auction house in Australia a few months back and focused on the Australian formatting for dating. Realistically dating bottles is an imprecise art as there is just such little proper reference material with set dates. Every rule I wrote for dating came with a major asterisk as there was so many exceptions. Australia used 1 pint 6 fluid ounces as our size formatting but Abv/proof was never listed on bottles, even for bottled in Scotland release. It wasn't till the 1980's that Abv came in, but I can't find any evidence of this being a legal requirement, I've only seen it practically by buying bottles I know were from the 80s vs the 70s etc., 95% of Scotch whisky consumed in Aus in 1983 was imported in cask and bottled in Australia. So there are very odd crossovers with glass as many many brands were using the same bottling house who only had limited glass types. E.G I have a late 70s Macleay Duff in a tall glass bottle when every other bottle I've seen is a squat pinched bottle. DCL would use the same glass for Corio produced in Aus as the imported King George Blend and even imported Brazilian made Bacardi. Thus dating based on label design/glass changes is impossible for our market. My advice when dating is: What region is the bottle for? Is it a UK market bottling? US market? South American? Italian (whole can of worms there)? If UK it's somewhat straight forward as you noted in the video - 26 FL ounces/imperial proof is 70s and prior. 750ml - 1980's. 700ml - 1990s and onwards. US market milestone is if it's in quart or gallons then it's pre-1976, and then any dating after that is based on design/glass/ownership changes. Importers are also a key part of dating a bottle. If you have a Seagram's imported product for example you know it was bottled pre-2000 when Seagrams closed. I really love dating bottles and I'm often the go to person in Aus when somebody needs a rough idea of what era their whisky hails from. It's like a jigsaw puzzle and every piece of the label/glass/seal/importer/branding tells you a little more and narrows down that range.

I enjoy every video you do about whisky Mark.You are one of only a few people I watch ,two of the others is, Roy from Aquavitae,and Ralfy Mitchell. I get alot of my info,between you's, and what I learn myself by tasting many whiskies,and travelling to many distilleries. I've been to no less than 70 Distilleries, although not all are opened to the public,but just to be on their land to take photos and to see them was good enough,such as Dallas dhu etc.Ive been in many doing tours ,from Aberlour to Glen Grant,Cardhu to Macallan,Glendronach to Glenturret,Auchentoshan to Springbank. I've not yet been to Islay ,but that's on the list for this summer. Your videos are always top notch informative. 👍

BTW, I have my bottle 29yo cognac I bought in your black Friday sale. Haven't opened it yet 😮

An excellent video Mark, very useful. I need to have a further rummage around my stash. Cheers!!

Hi Mark, Big fan of your videos and you're one of the reasons I have gotten in Whisky investing. Can you please do a video or share some thoughts on The Macallan Semi Quincentenary Robert Burn's edition? Is that a good investment? Will it increase in value over time? Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Great information! Thanks for sharing! Are there any specific books or online resources you would recommend to help further? Cheers!

Where your initials PROOF before 1980 and then became ML 😂 great videos thank you

Wouldn’t it have been easier if they had just inked the bottling date on the bottom of the bottle 😂 Great video! Thanks 🙏

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