The Scotch Blog

Still on vacation . . .

I am NOT able to approve comments whilst gone.

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Originally Posted – October 12, 2005

The shape of the bottle

 

Mark Reynier, Managing Director, Bruichladdich Distillery

It
was an old  bottle design that has become standardised for mass
production. Probably, in the past with hand blowing, the neck bulge had
something to do with  glass strength in the neck of the bottle and for
receiving a standardised cork stopper. Today they are produced in
moulds.

KME - Bruichladdich does not use the "bulb" – their bottle is very much like the original whisky bottles (see Macallan photo below)

Dr. David Wishart, Author, Whisky Classified gives us this great history of the bottle as well:

The
origin of the glass bottle is as a serving vessel, used by the upper
classes and by merchants from the mid-18th century. Whisky (and wine)
was supplied in a cask or stoneware jar, and was decanted into a clear
glass vessel (the decanter, the job being performed by a "bottler",
hence the title "butler"). When supplied by a merchant it would be
stoppered for transit, with a deposit refundable when returned. Clear
glass was taxed at 11 times that of black or green glass, and was
therefore the preserve of the wealthy.

The first whisky bottles were re-used wine bottles, e.g. Macallan.
They took off in the whisky boom of the 1890s when whisky began being
sold by the case for export. They started to be mass produced by glass
factories after a glass-blowing machine was invented by Arnall and
Howard Ashley in 1887. The bottles were cast in moulds, which
presumably followed the style of the decanters used by the upper
classes.

The advantage of the sealed bottle for export was that it could be
properly stoppered and sealed, thereby reducing the scope for dilution
or replacement by unscrupulous intermediaries. During US prohibition,
Captain William McCoy, a smuggler based in the Bahamas, supplied such
good quality Scotch compared to the illicit bootlegged US alternative,
that patrons of Chicago speakeasys dubbed his sealed bottles the "Real
McCoy".

As to the shape of the neck, I can only speculate that it evolved
from the decanter in a bulbous form for easy and safe gripping by the
butler, and has remained that way ever since.

Dominic Roskrow, Editor, Whisky Magazine

I
really don’t have a clue beyond to say that if you look at early bottle
making, the long neck style seemed to develop out of that early
glass-firing process. So you’d assume it was the easiest way of making
a pouring bottle – so it’s been imitated as much through tradition as
anything else. And of course there are a growing number of different
bottle shapes now – suggesting that the science isn’t so important.
Really not sure though…

Dave Robbo Robertson, (Formerly of Easy Drinking Whisky Company, Now with Whyte & Mackay)
 

Here are our considered thoughts from our bottling expert.

To
be honest, it is a tradition, now widely associated with "traditional"
Scotch Whisky design. It probably has resonance in the "bulbous" shape
of the pot still. In fact it makes the bottle slightly more difficult
to make, not easier, because of the transition of radii. There is a
slight advantage in the design in that it allows a little more empty
space in the neck (which we call vacuity) thereby allowing a slighly
higher fill up the neck, which will look more attractive under the
capsule. Not all bottles have a bulb…in fact we have deliberately
tried to be different with some of our designs, but a straight neck
does look more austere, and more modern I think, and the bulb is softer
and more gentle to the eye. Therefore it is more appropriate for older
malt whiskies. There is a limit to what you can actually do with a
neck!!

Regards,
Mike.

Kevin Erskine, The Scotch Blog

My
own SWAG of a guess is that it is a combination of being an easy to
hold handle AND having some design function to maximize airflow. I also
have a suspicion that the bell shape, mimicked by today’s whisky taster
glasses, gathers the aroma of the whisky to give you that first great
whiff after opening a bottle.

Well there you have it – if there is any real reason for the "bulb" it’s been lost over the ages.

Today it’s likely just a matter of tradition as many distilleries
use the bulbous neck (with wide variations), while just as many do not.

I’d like to thank the experts for taking time out of their day to ponder this question.

And thanks for asking a great question, Scott.

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One of my favorite bulbous neck bottles is used by Balvenie.

Some distillers use the bulbous neck (Glenfarclas, Laphroaig, Talisker)

While some do not (Glenfiddich, Bruichladdich, Oban)

One of the earliest known whisky bottles, an 1841 Macallan. Just a reused wine bottle – no bulbous neck.