When reaching for a bottle of whisky in a liquor store, you may notice a batch number on the bottle. This does not refer to the process of batch distillation, but rather serves as a way to denote a single bottling run of a whisky. This is more commonly seen with American whiskies, particularly Bourbons, but batch designations can be found in many categories including ryes and single malts. Some see the batch numbers as the whisky industry’s answer to the concept of a vintage, due to the connection to specific years of production and aging in the whisky selected for a specific bottling.
The number of barrels used or the number of bottles produced in a single batch may vary widely. Even the term “small batch” is vague enough to carry no legal weight. It could mean two barrels or two hundred barrels were used. Varying batches of a whisky product typically demonstrate a level of consistency, while showing some changes in aroma, flavor or mouthfeel to varying degrees based on ingredients used, production processes and climate impacts.